Vale
by mangaluva
Summary: A year after the Battle of Manhattan, Loki's true punishment begins. He'll have to decide what he really is, both for his sake... and his son's. Meanwhile, across the universe, dark forces are starting to move, and Loki might be the only one who knows exactly what. Expanded from a oneshot based on Loki's final punishment in the old mythology.
1. Punishment

_**Title:**__ Vale: Punishment_

_**Word Count**__: 2879_

_**Main Character(s)**__: ...that's kind of a spoiler... _

_**Notes:**__ So because I'm a mythology geek I've started weaving actual Norse myths into MCU!Thor and Loki's backgrounds. This story concerns Loki's final punishment in the original mythology. Notes about the myths and stories involved are at the bottom, for anyone who cares. No ownie._

_Also, this is set about a year after the Battle of Manhatten, and in the meantime Peter Parker has joined the Avengers because I'm sad that Spiderman can't be in this universe yet. All of the Avengers have flats in Stark Tower, including Clint and Natasha, but the latter two don't generally live there and Steve travels a lot. So does Thor, after a while of Loki being a peaceful prisoner, because he likes seeing Jane's work and she has to travel for some of it. They're only all at the tower when there's something going on. Like now..._

Odin strips Loki of his powers and banishes him to Midgard, as he did Thor, where he is kept confined in some special rooms in Stark Tower. The reaction to this punishment is mixed on Asgard. Crimes of the scope of Loki's have not been committed by an Asgardian for centuries. Some want him to be punished as a Jotun and simply killed. Some believe in the old punishments, which have been neither changed nor implemented for centuries. They are no less than torture, and Odin is uneasy about using them. So he uses an alternate punishment, not dissimilar to the banishment that he inflicted on Thor, hoping in his heart that it will help Loki as it did his brother.

Some are satisfied with this punishment. Some are not. And some, in the warrior-society of Asgard, decide to take matters into their own hands.

Midgard is now considered a developed enough world to have some control over what extraterrestrials cross its borders. Odin has met with Nick Fury and the World Security Council, a meeting that was highly enjoyable for Fury (he doesn't know how the hell Odin managed to actually illuminate the four council members over video call, but their shocked expressions were a joy to behold) and have agreed that, for the time being, only a small selection of Asgardians will be given free travel until Midgard is ready. Odin is content with this, as he knows that there is unrest over his punishment of Loki and that there are many who had hoped to travel to Midgard and kill him themselves. He does not realize until it is too late that those who are angry enough to do so may find alternate targets.

There is a year of unrest before Loki's true punishment strikes.

{}

The sky over New York is strange, the clouds filled with pulsating light. Thor has been back and forth just enough times for Jarvis to be capable of recognizing a Bifrost portal, and the AI alerts Tony, who in turn wakes Thor. The Thunder God has barely stepped out onto his balcony before the rainbow light swallows him up, carrying him off to Asgard.

"I guess it's important, then?" Tony comments to the fading clouds. He returns to his penthouse, locking up Thor's floor for him while he's gone. Loki has been a surprisingly tame guest over the past year, but better to be safe than sorry, especially with that new Parker kid running around the building.

It is late in the evening, after a clear day, that thick clouds roll in, and heavy rain and lightning strike down on New York. Thor's not above announcing his arrivals with a little lightning, to the point where the citizens of New York are quite acclimatized to random thunderstorms, adaptable as ever. The heavy rain is a little strange, though.

Thor appears on Tony's balcony on the top floor. He is carrying a sleeping boy of about twelve in his arms, a child with messy black hair and oddly pointed ears, dressed in blue and black Asgardian clothes. Thor's expression is even more thunderous than the weather.

"Tony, I am sorry to ask more of you," he says as the other Avengers join him, "but I must find somewhere safe for this boy. He is not safe on Asgard, and this is the only realm I could think to take him."

"Oh my god, what's happened to him?" Pepper gasps. They've all noticed the bloodstains on the boy's hands and face.

"This boy's name is Vale," Thor says, "and his brother is dead. Please, may he rest here?"

"You've got spare rooms in your floor, use 'em," Tony says with a shrug.

"I'll come help you clean him up," Bruce offers. Thor offers him a grateful smile. Vale is only a couple of years older than Shanta, and Thor can see the doctor's heart going out to another child who has lost his family.

"Who is this kid, Thor?" Steve asks, stopping Thor as he makes for the lift.

"His name is Vale," Thor repeats, skirting the question.

"You said that," Natasha points out. "But who _is_ he?"

"I must speak to my brother," Thor says, pushing past Steve.

{}

Loki is listening to music when Thor enters the room. Thor switches off the music, striding over to his brother. Loki looks curious about the dark expression on Thor's face, the heavy way that the older man drops into the chair opposite him. He remains silent, as he often does when Thor comes to him, waiting for his brother's latest entreaty. He does not expect this.

"Loki," Thor says heavily, "Narfe is dead."

Tony has opened up the security feed so that the other Avengers can listen in, to find out what is going on. They are all shocked by the way Loki gapes, his eyes widening and his mouth dropping open, before his face crumples entirely and he drops his head into his hands.

"There are those of Asgard who do not agree with your punishment," Thor says. "Some set about Narfe and Vale. They turned Vale into a wolf. Vale panicked, he lashed out, and Narfe was standing closest..."

Loki's breath is harsh and ragged. "Why not kill me, then?" he whispers. "If Asgard has rebelled against the Allfather's decision, why does he not simply kill me? Would it not be so much simpler?"

"You know why he does not wish to execute you," Thor says sharply, "nor condemn you to the serpent's venom. It is not all Asgard that rebels, simply an angry few. They are being dealt with, both for causing the death of an innocent child and for endangering all of Asgard. Had the spell held, Vale's rampage could have been..."

"Like Fenrir," Loki laughs bitterly. When he raises his head, tear tracks are visible on his cheeks. "That was surely their intent in turning him into a wolf. They can claim that he, too, is a monster." His face falls. "What of Sigyn?" he asks softly, hesitantly.

"She has taken Narfe's body to the water meadows," Thor says. "I do now know how long she plans to stay. She asked me to see to Vale's safety. He is here now, a boy again. Do you wish me to bring him to see you?"

Loki looks away sharply. "If he is a boy again, then better not to," he says bitterly. "No need for him to be exposed to monsters again."

{}

Thank you for staying with him," Thor says, sitting down next to Vale's bed. The boy's sleep is fitful and restless, and clearly plagued by nightmares.

"Thor," Bruce says, "I heard your conversation with Loki. We all did. This kid... is he..."

Vale's eyes drift open. They are sharp and green, and focus on Thor.

"Uncle," he whispers. "Where am I... What happened to..."

Thor smoothes the hair from his forehead. "It is okay. You are safe now, Vale."

"Where is Narfe?" Vale asks. "Where is my brother?"

"He is gone, Vale," Thor says softly. "I am sorry."

Vale's face crumples in a way that Bruce is sure that he saw not half an hour before, and then he buries his face in the bedcovers and sobs.

{}

"Loki's son?" Steve says. "You brought _Loki's_ son here?"

"I will take him elsewhere if he is unwelcome," Thor says firmly, "but I will not see him returned to Asgard. He is an innocent child."

"Thought you said he turned into a wolf and ripped his brother apart," Clint points out.

"His transformation was not of his will," Thor says sharply. "I do not believe that he will transform again. He does not remember what has happened, and his been so grief-stricken over his brother's death that I have not yet told him."

"Guys, is this really so terrible?" Peter asks. The newest Avenger is still nervous about piping up during conferences, and flushes as everyone looks at him. "I mean, if the kid's not actually dangerous, what's the problem?"

"His _father_ is the problem," Natasha responds.

"Vale has not seen his father since before my banishment," Thor argues. "Vale is not evil, or dangerous. I will not see him punished further for the nature of his birth, over which he has no control!"

"I'm still reeling that your crazy brother's a _dad_," Darcy puts in.

"Y'know, guys, I think I gotta go with Thor and Pete on this," Tony says. "This kid needs help. We can't prejudge him based on what his dad's done. Doing that might just turn him _into_ his dad." If anyone notices Pepper taking his hand during this, they are careful to show no sign of this.

"I agree," Bruce says. "Treating this kid like a monster isn't exactly going to prevent him becoming one. Isn't that more or less what happened to Loki?"

"Somewhat, yes," Thor says, feeling shamefaced. "I beg of you, my friends. Give my nephew the gift of a chance."

"I suppose we could trial-run him," Steve suggests. "Keep him confined to Thor's floor, to start with. Monitor his behaviour and assess whether he's a threat or just a damaged kid."

"Thank you, Captain," Thor says gratefully. "I promise you, he is not a bad child. His mother is a water nymph, and she has raised him well." He smiles sadly. "Once, we did not get along. She used to say that I was pompous, arrogant. She was entirely correct."

"How'd a girl like that wind up with your brother?" Tony asks curiously.

"Loki was once very different to how he is now," Thor says. "She says that she fell in love with him the moment his reflection crossed her pond." The sad smile returns. "I think she saw a far better man in that reflection than he ever did."

{}

Thor is concerned but not entirely surprised by Vale's dour demeanour over the next few days and weeks. It pains him to see the way Vale's head constantly flicks to the side, looking for his twin's reaction to whatever he has just seen or heart, and the way Vale's face crumples when he sees nothing there.

He is not sure if Vale is aware that his father is elsewhere in the building, and does not tell him so; Loki has refused to see Vale, and Thor fears heaping more trauma on his nephew if Loki has a strong negative reaction to seeing him. He has not yet found the way to tell Vale that his brother's death was by his own fang.

Both Jane and Darcy have rooms on Thor's floor, though Jane just as often sleeps in Thor's room these days (he knows that this is not the Midgard version of marriage, but feels unaccountably nervous about telling Jane that it is the Asgardian definition). Neither have shied away from Vale. Darcy has made it her personal mission, as she did for the lady Sif and the Warriors Three during their visit and Thor and Steve constantly, to educate Vale on Midgardian entertainment and culture. She is determined to find something to make the depressed boy giggle again. Jane is not really the mothering type, but she tries her best to make Vale feel welcome and spend some time with him when she's not in her laboratory.

Peter Parker is Darcy's ally in the pop-culture onslaught, and seems to like visiting Vale. Parker joined the Avengers after the Chitauri incident, so Thor isn't entirely sure if he really understands the gravity of the situation with Loki, but he appreciates that Vale is not being made to feel unwelcome or a monster. He has no wish to see Vale fall as Loki did.

Bruce visits often, too, both Vale and Loki. He eventually brings Shanta to see Vale as well, which is the clearest sign that he trusts the boy. Shanta and Vale, being the only children in the building and only a couple of years apart in age, get along very well. Shanta, too, has lost brothers and parents, and is very good at gauging what is likely to upset Vale.

Thor keeps Loki updated on how Vale is doing. Loki shows no outward interest, but Thor cannot forget his breakdown on hearing of Narfe's death.

{}

After a month, Vale has caused no trouble or concern. Thor had been worried about Vale's mischievous streak, so like his father's, but it seems to have died with Narfe. Vale has been a quiet, sad boy, a far cry from the bubbly child that Thor once knew, but that is understandable. Vale no longer looks around for his brother, but Thor sometimes hears him talking to Narfe when he thinks he is alone.

Shanta is already planning for Vale a grand tour of Stark Tower. Vale has not yet seen Loki, and Thor has heard nothing from Sigyn, but he is determined that Vale will at least know the truth of what befell his brother before he meets the rest of the Avengers.

One night, he sits Vale down to tell him. Vale cuts him off.

"It's alright, Uncle," he says. "I know. I killed Narfe."

Thor is startled. "Who told you?"

"Narfe did," Vale says quietly. "But he forgave me. He said that it wasn't my fault. That makes it okay, doesn't it?" He looks pleadingly at Thor, begging for absolution.

"It is going to be alright, Vale," Thor says, worried that Vale thinks Narfe is talking to him but unwilling to take away anything that will ease the boy's troubled mind. He places a hand on his nephew's neck. "I swear."

{}

Thor can't help but feel some nervousness about leaving Vale on Midgard. There is no way he will take the boy with him back to Asgard, but he must talk to Sigyn and his father. The others seem to bear no ill will towards Vale, but Thor is comforted to receive Bruce's promise that both of him will see to Vale's safety.

Thor has not been to the water meadows often. They are beautiful, but the nymphs guard their pools jealously and are not above enchanting or drowning anyone they deem a trespasser; in any case, such a peaceful place did not appeal to his younger, more warlike self.

He eventually finds Sigyn's pool in a concealed copse. It is truly, extraordinarily beautiful, filled with small lights and strange plants. Thor carefully steps over a burst of silver and gold flowers, a kind which do not normally grow in the water meadows. He wonders sadly if the beautiful plants are Loki's doing. It's hard to believe that such beauty could come from the sullen mass-murderer now locked into a concealed room in Stark Tower. But Thor can still remember the feasting to celebrate Loki and Sigyn's union, how bright and happy Loki had been then. Thor had been overjoyed for his brother, happy to see him love again after his affair with Angrboda had ended so badly. That was a man that Thor could believe would make flowers.

Sigyn does not look up from the pool. She is sitting on its edge, her long golden hair unbound and floating down into the water with the hem of her dress and her cloak, as if all three are liquid as well. Thor is startled to look into the pool and see Narfe's body, perfectly preserved and without a trace of damage.

"My boy will never wake again," Sigyn says softly, "but I can at least leave him without scars." She trails her fingers in the water over her dead son's face. It barely ripples. "Why do you disturb my mourning?"

"On behalf of your son still living," Thor says. "Vale too mourns for his brother, and fears himself. His father will not see him; would you deprive him of his mother too?"

"He fears himself?" Sigyn muses. "How like his father. Perhaps I ought to bring him here. It cannot be good for him to remain in your care."

Though Thor hopes to see Vale reunited with his mother, he is stung by this. "What do you mean?" he demands. "I took him from Asgard to protect him! I mean him no harm!"

"I do not doubt that for a second, Thunderer," Sigyn says smoothly. "Nor do I believe that you ever meant harm upon Loki. I know that you love him as dearly as I. Nevertheless, harm he suffered whenever the two of you fought great battles together and the halls of Asgard rung only with tales of your might. Whenever you were praised and he was suspected. Whenever it was spoken of how different the two of you are, what a _shame_ it was that he was not more like _you..._"

Thor flinches from the biting truth. "Loki has always had great gifts that I do not," he says, gesturing to the beautiful glade. "I could never create something like this. His gifts are arguably much greater than mine."

"Then perhaps you ought to have argued it more often," Sigyn hisses.

"I have changed since then," Thor says.

"So has my husband," Sigyn says, returning her gaze to her dead son's face. "And once again, you have come out far better than he."

_**Mythology Notes:**__ This fic is based on the story of Loki's final punishment. Translations of the old Norse myths vary widely, and I've read a few different versions, so I've possibly mixed different elements of different versions together here :P This is the general myth, but be warned, it's kind of the definition of "fucked up":_

_When the other gods had finally had enough of Loki, due to his role in Baldr's death and a few other resultant acts of douchebaggery, they sentenced him to be bound eternally to a boulder/tree (it varies). The messed up part is that they don't just bind him with rope or chains. They bring his two sons, Nari/Narfi/Narfe and Vari/Vali/Vale (both have multiple translation names; I like Narfe and Vale just because) and trap the pair in a magic circle. They then turn Vale into a savage wolf and he rips Narfe apart. They then bind Loki with _Narfe's entrails._ Vale's fate thereafter isn't mentioned that I can recall, but probably he was killed because Fenrir was quite enough trouble to be getting on with. Anyway, once they're done tying Loki up with his murdered son's intestines (which have turned to iron because), they dangle a snake over his head that constantly drips venom onto his face. Sigyn, Loki's wife, who isn't mentioned before this in the _Poetic Edda_ and is only brought up briefly as a nymph and Loki's wife in the _Prose Edda_, sits by Loki holding a bowl over his face to catch the venom. However, the bowl occasionally fills up, so she has to go empty it. When she does, venom drips onto Loki's face, and his writhing in pain is violent enough to cause earthquakes. This process repeats until he finally breaks free and kicks off Ragnarok._

_The MCU versions of the gods are somewhat different in character from the mythological versions. Odin, while still not exactly being a candidate for World's Best Dad, is still far more benevolent than he is in the mythology, and I can't see Anthony Hopkins!Odin ordering a punishment this messed-up- and I certainly can't see Chris Hemsworth!Thor tolerating it. The main elements in this are the death of Narfe and the transformation of Vale, which are under slightly different circumstances._

_There's pretty much nothing stated about Sigyn, but I've tried to keep what there is. She's said to be a nymph, but what kind isn't stated, so I went with water nymph because I like water nymphs and I got a very clear image in my head of her enchanted pool. She's also deeply devoted to her husband, so by extension she doesn't like Thor much at all :P And she's described as being sorrowful, though as her only appearance is when her husband is being tortured this probably isn't her default state of being :P Here Loki isn't being tortured, just confined, so her solemn guard duty is over Narfe's body while she mourns. That she isn't there for Vale is in line with the myth; if he did survive, she spends the rest of time guarding her husband, so it's not like she's there for him then either :P_

_I can find close to nothing about Narfe and Vale beyond their presence at Loki's binding. So I have a lot of free range to make stuff up about them, like randomly deciding their ages and that they're twins :P I figure Vale might have some interesting powers, being the son of a Jotun sorcerer and a water nymph. I mean, look at Loki's kids with Angrboda..._

_Oh, finally, in my headcanon, Loki was married to Sigyn and father to Narfe and Vale at the time of _Thor_, we just didn't get to see him interacting with them. Sigyn didn't attend Thor's coronation with her sons because she didn't approve of it, and directly after the botched coronation Loki was having to deal with angry Thor and the trip to Jotunheim. He didn't want to be around his family after discovering he was a Jotun, for reasons that I hope to elaborate on later, so he told Sigyn that he'd be away from them for a while as he had to deal with King stuff. For obvious reasons, he never got to go back to his family. Sigyn's devotion to Loki is well-known, so she's not been allowed near him since his incarceration in case she helps him break out._

_So yeah, I hope you enjoy my take on the mythology in this universe, and if you want to read more, let me know :D _


	2. Transition

_**Title:**__ Vale: Transition_

_**Word Count**__: 3252_

_**Main Character(s)**__: Vale Lokisson, Narfe Lokisson, Thor Odinsson, Loki Laufeysson, Bruce Banner, Shanta Banner, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Peter Parker, May Parker, Jane Foster, Darcy Lewis, Steve Rogers_

_**Notes:**__ A little more of Vale's story, segueing into a much bigger conflict. Not with any particular subtlety, I'm afraid :P More mythological rambling at the bottom. No ownie on my part for anything._

Once Thor is gone, Clint and Natasha vanish. Steve's sure that one of them is reporting to Fury while the other is spying on Vale, but it'll be impossible to know which until something happens.

Unfortunately, something does.

The only reason that they're not taken completely by surprise is that Bruce is looking after Vale and Shanta, so instead of working in his personal lab Tony is having a lonely huff and checking in with the progress of the others. The scientists watching and monitoring the Ark Reactor in the basement do not respond, and when Tony checks the security camera he sees a lot of people that shouldn't be there. He certainly didn't hire any gunmen as scientists. He isn't sure, but he thinks he sees one appear out of thin air in the split second before something below explodes.

The whole building rocks. The power flickers, and when it reasserts itself Jarvis begins blaring a red alert signal and reeling off damage reports to Tony. Two of the building's major structural supports have been hit, which is why the building is starting to sway.

"We're hit!" he yells, grabbing his earpiece. "Dammit, I thought Fury was keeping tabs on the Ten Rings!"

"_Ten Rings?"_ Steve asks.

"I only got a brief look, but it was a hell of an ethnic mix that you don't get in your bog-standard supremist terrorist cell," Tony says, leaping into the nearest suit closet before the power goes off entirely.

"_Agreed_," he hears Natasha say. "I_'m on the security cameras now. A number of faces match known Ten Rings members. And I'm sorry, Tony, but they've wiped out the lobby and are killing anyone trying to flee down the stairs_."

Another explosion goes off, and the building sways more.

"_Some of them are spreading out into the street_!" Peter yells. The building's shaking stops abruptly. "_I've... nngh... got the place... webbed... from the next... building... _damn, _this is heavy..._"

"_Get all civilian personnel to go up, not down,"_ Steve orders. "_Thor's floor has the highest security just now. If we can't get them out, we need to stabilize the building. Tony, you need to see to the structural integrity of this building NOW. Bruce, suit up and help him out."_

"_I'm on it,_" Bruce says, before disconnecting entirely. Vale and Shanta must be at safety already, or at least unhurt. Tony smashes out a window and flies down, spotting a number of targets spreading out into the street and auto-targeting.

"_Natasha, where are you?_" He hears Steve ask."_We need to work our way down the building, sending civilians up and bad guys to sleep._"

"_Seventeenth floor, south stairwell,"_ Natasha says. "_Bad guys about twelve floors down. I'm on my way._"

Tony spots the Hulk propping up the building between two damaged supports. "How you holdin' up, Pete?" he asks, trying to focus on keeping his welding hand steady while ignoring the bullets pinging off his armour and Hulk's back. Hulk roars angrily. "Because these guys are pissing the big guy off, so he might be able to hold the place up if you're wearing out."

"_I can hold out for a few more minutes, but the webbing's getting strained,_" Peter says. "_You built a helluva big building, Mr Stark._"

"Only place big enough for my ego, they say," Tony quips, firing a number of darts out of his shoulder plates to get rid of a couple of guys with machine guns. Inwardly, he's kicking himself. He spent so much time monitoring Vale that he completely ignored his other security interests. The kid isn't even dangerous.

{}

Pepper does a headcount. It keeps her calm while the floor is swaying under her. Herself, Darcy, Jane, Shanta, Vale, Mrs Parker and twenty-three members of R&D staff from the upper floors. Twelve people from Legal are disgorged from the elevator. The private upper floors are only accessible by lift, for security reasons- the lack of stairs was never considered a fire hazard because of the number of them that could fly and kept small private jets. She's wishing that she'd considered the possibility of having to get a lot of people _in_ rather than _out _before.

She checks the security camera and sees more people congregating in front of the lift on the top R&D floor. The gunmen are still about ten floors below, but they've already killed almost everyone on those floors. Thankfully, Steve and Natasha are on their way down to meet them. They won't be taking out anyone else.

Pepper just wishes she could figure out where they all came from. The cameras to the Ark Reactor have been taken out entirely, but how could all of those men have gotten in there?

Jane has tuned into a link to the Avengers' comms. Tony and Bruce are working on stabilizing the building while Peter covers them; from the sounds of it, the reason that the building has stopped shaking is that the Hulk is holding it up.

The lift doors are just opening again as another explosion rocks the building, and the power goes out entirely.

There's a lot of panicked shouting from the only partially-open lift. Pepper taps at a few computer screens, calling for Jarvis.

"Where's the backup power?" Darcy asks nervously.

"Backup and main power have both been taken out, Miss Potts," says Jarvis' voice from Pepper's phone. "Derivatives of my main AI are still functioning on this phone and in Mr Stark's suit, but I cannot access my main computer."

"Can someone help us open these doors?" a voice calls plaintively from the lift. "They're stuck fast."

"Vale's really strong," Shanta says, patting the Asgardian boy on the back. "He picked up a whole sofa when I lost a marble under it, didn't you?"

"I'll try," Vale mutters shyly, walking over to the lift. He puts his hands into the gap and slowly pulls the heavy lift door aside. Everyone stares at the display of Asgardian strength from the rather slight boy.

"Thank you!" Several people say, looking a little claustrophobic as they spill out into Thor's living room. Vale goes very red.

"Uncle is much stronger," he mutters. He's panting a little with the exertion. "He would not break a sweat."

"No, but he'd probably break the door," Darcy says, giving the boy a hug. "Good job, squirt."

"At least the gunmen won't be able to get in here with no lift," Pepper says.

"Miss Potts, I think you ought to see this..." one of the researchers calls from the window. Pepper runs out onto the balcony and looks down.

A number of the gunmen, apparently abandoning the stairwell, have grappled their way up to the lowest balcony- Bruce's, his floor being directly over R&D. As the first one reaches the balcony, he peers through a window and, seeing nothing, immediately begins to grapple up to the next one.

"Everybody get out of sight of the windows," Pepper orders, knowing that everyone's looking to her to be in charge. "Get into the inside rooms if you can. Lock them if possible. Stay out of sight and don't make a sound!" She prays that the gunman didn't see her looking over the balcony.

Mrs Parker takes Vale and Shanta by the hand and leads them into the nearest bathroom, promising them a game of hide and seek as they climb into the tub and draw the shower curtain. Jane and Darcy are going down a corridor away from the windows. Pepper follows them, suddenly grabbing Jane by the shoulder.

"Jane," she says urgently, "the security around Loki's room was one of the things running on the emergency power."

Jane pales, and she and Darcy bolt down the corridor to Loki's room.

The door is ajar.

{}

"_Support's coming out to you now, Tony,_" Fury says as Tony furiously welded another support beam back together. He had to shift to place himself between the weak metal and a man with a machine gun trying to shoot it apart. Behind him, he hears the _splat_ and disgusted yell of someone getting smacked to the floor by a glob of spider web.

"Why the hell didn't we see this coming?" Tony demands.

"_There's been no large exodus from any of the known Ten Rings camps,_" Fury says. "_Night guards are out same as ever. We let them be because we're waiting for their next weapons shipment to find out where they're gettin' them from these days 'Til then, I got entymologists that are higher on my priorities list. Sorry, Tony. Nobody saw this comin'. How the hell'd they get in your building, anyway?_"

"I'm working on a hypothesis," Tony says. He gestures to Hulk to let the building go. The green giant steps aside with surprising care, and when the building appears to be able to hold itself up, roars and charges down to the Ark Reactor basement. Tony gets to work strengthening the supports.

"_Hostiles ascended out the windows_!" Steve yells. "_They've got some kind of grapples!_"

"_If we head up to the top R&D floor, we can get onto Bruce's balcony from there,_" Natasha responds. "_There's no power, the lifts are out._"

"No more hostiles down here," Tony says, "And the big guy's gone to make sure there won't be any more. Pete, you'll be able to get up there fastest."

"I got it," Peter says, leaping up and rapidly scaling the building. Tony tries to focus on his work, but he's suddenly afraid. They're heading up to Thor's apartment- where _Pepper_ is, and a lot of other innocent people. Thanks to the events of the past month, that flat has some of the best security in the building, but all of that is meaningless without power.

"Aw, _shit_," he says as it hits him.

"_Tony?_" Steve asks. "_What's wrong?_"

"_Do I need to come back down?_" Peter asks nervously.

"Hell no," Tony says sharply before the kid drops back down to him. "Get up there _now_. I think there's already a hostile loose up there."

"_They're not at Thor's balcony just yet,_" Steve says.

"_All_ the power's out," Tony says. "The backups and the backups of the backups, which means that all security's out. Including the _special_ security."

"_You're saying we've got a celestial mass-murderer on the loose,_" Natasha says, "_who probably won't be kept in check by paternal instinct_."

"_Hey, it worked for Darth Vader,_" Peter mutters.

"I'll be up there as soon as I can," Tony promises as fire trucks and police screech up to the base of the tower.

{}

Vale holds tight to Lady Parker's hand. She's kind and soothing, trying to make it all out to be a game, but Vale knows it is not. It is dark, and quiet, and men are coming to kill them. The adults have tried not to say as such to him or Shanta, trying to keep the children innocent, but there has been death already, and so Narfe knows.

There has been much death nearby. Vale can feel his half-sister Hela close, and Narfe is always near to his mind.

Men coming to kill them. Like the angry Asgardians who surrounded him and Narfe, who shouted at them, insults to them, to Father, someone raised weapons to them, they tried to defend themselves with their magic, to escape, somebody reflected their own magic onto Vale-

He buries his head in his hands. He's starting to get frightened, and he feels funny. He tried to summon true Asgardian courage, his grandfather's unflappable bravery, but the people's insults ring in his head, reminding him that his grandfather is not his blood grandfather at all.

"It'll be quite alright, dear," Lady Parker whispers soothingly, smoothing his hair. "Just sit still. The Avengers will handle it."

"Shh!" Shanta hisses. "We are hiding!"

There is a _thump_ outside. A woman peering through the door suddenly _snaps_ it shut.

"They tried smashing through the window!" She whispers, fumbling with the lock in a panic. "One of them had a blowtorch! They're burning through!"

"Oh god, they'll kill us all," a man mutters, burying his head in his hands. Vale thinks of Narfe.

_You can stop them, before they kill you. Send them to Sister Hela. She will see that they get what they deserve._

"I don't want to," Vale whispers.

"What's that, dear?" Lady Parker asks.

_It'll be easy. Only the bad men will go. Lady Parker, and Shanta, and the other kind humans will be safe. You ought to repay them for their kindness. They welcomed you, even knowing what you are. What you _did_. They won't mind. It'll be very easy._

Vale stands up and steps out of the bathtub, pushing past the humans. Suddenly, it is so very easy.

He closes the door behind him, magically sealing it. Until it is opened from the inside, even he will not be able to break through.

{}

Loki's rooms are always dark. Some would accuse him of attempting to be creepy or intimidating. The truth is not so melodramatic. He has nothing to prove to these pathetic ants.

Many people fear the dark due to the irrational fear that there are monsters in it, and turn on lights to prove that this is not so. Loki fears turning the lights on due to the not entirely irrational fear that the monsters will still be there- and will now be able to see him.

After centuries sparring with Thor, Loki is very sensitive to electrical currents. The power to the entire building is gone. With it has gone the music he was listening to. He doesn't like it. Whatever is going on below, he is too far and still too insulated to hear, so he begins to recite a ritual for seeing the future. He doesn't have the power to active it, he simply needs to drown out the sound of his own mind, his own memory.

He doesn't have power, but his senses are still keen, and oh so attuned to _Her_. How could he not know Her? He spent his indeterminable time in the Pit longing for Her. All of them did. He could feel Her the second She appeared down below, and oh, isn't She busy.

They've come for him. That must be the case. Surely the metal man's tower is better constructed than to fall to mere mortals so easily?

In that case, there is no point to staying in this stifling room any longer. It has been too long, too long in this crevice.

There is a flimsy metal lock in the door, but it is the only thing holding it shut. Loki will never be the powerhouse that his meatheaded brother is, but his strength is more than sufficient to deal with this feeble door. For the first time in a year, he steps outside of his room.

There are star maps on the wall, of both Midgard and Asgard. Loki strides past twinkling night skies towards a window that offers only a marginally different vista to the window of his room, but different nonetheless. Midgardian towers stretching to the horizon, looking not too different from the last time that Loki truly surveyed the city, hazed in smoke from the remnants of explosions. Odd that the only things in the sky are helicopters, human artifices.

He peers down at the long drop down, not so long as the fall into the void. Blissfully brief, just long enough to make brief work even of him. It would save them time, and- the thought makes him laugh- deny them the gift of choosing his death for him. Why should he let them control him a moment longer?

He hears three sets of footsteps. Three panicked heartbeats, three tiny gasps of shock and fear. He can almost taste that fear on his lips. How delicious, that even as weakened as he is, he can still provoke such a reaction from these pitiful creatures.

"What a strange state of affairs," he says, glancing over his shoulder at them. The chattery woman, the one who brought Loki the Midgardian entertainment which has done an unexpectedly sufficient job of filling long hours, is clutching the arm of Thor's pet. Stark's woman has stepped in front of them, trying to stand tall and defensive like a ruler, but Loki can feel her fear too, like a tangible thing. "How very unexpected."

"Too bad it's not any of your alien pals, huh?" The talkative one says. It is brave of her indeed to talk to him as such. Brave, but discourteous, and Loki ought not to let her talk as such, but her words are of interest to him. It is not the Chitauri, then, nor any other horror that was conjured for him from the far reaches of the universe.

"And where, pray, are your valiant defenders?" He asks, looking around. He can feel fire spring to life elsewhere on the floor.

"Close to," Stark's woman lies. "Go back to your room, Loki."

"Or what?" Loki laughs, cackling wildly. What does this wench think she can do to _him_? She might think herself a ruler of her little empire, but she is nothing compared to what Loki is by right. Loki turns, towering over the three women. He flexes his fingers, only able to draw a little magic, but he needs no magic to snap their puny necks. It would be so easy, so enticing to feel their lives fade from his grip to his daughter's...

A man, a technician who on Asgard would be fit only to repair children's toys, runs down the hall towards them.

"Ma'am, they're burning through the window," he says urgently. "You need to get to a room with a locking door..." He gawks at the Trickster God. Loki considers plucking his impudent eyes out. "Who the hell is that?"

"Watch your tongue, mortal," Loki snarls sharply, stepping towards them. The women step backwards, startled, preparing to run.

"Vale! VALE!" They hear a woman screaming. The word is enough to distract Loki's attention to greater matters. These worthless _fools_ have left a child of his blood in danger?

Of course, he can feel it now, Vale's magic, learned from Sigyn and from Loki. He has been able to feel it for a month, fluctuating, sometimes failing and incomplete without his brother's powers to complement it, sometimes full and strong. Thor has been asking him, frequently, about Narfe and Vale's abilities, but what is Loki to know of them? He has not seen his youngest children in so very long, since before he knew what he was. Before he knew that he truly was a monster.

It ought to have been obvious long before. Fenrir. Jorgamund. Hela. The trolls. It ought to have long been obvious what Loki was, but the Allfather's lies deceived even him and lead him only to spread the taint of his own blood further. Now he feels Vale's power spike and twist, feels Hela's reach spread, and knows that it is too late for Vale and always has been. At least Narfe left to a more peaceful realm before ever knowing what he was.

The talkative one has turn and run down the corridor. Thor's pet follows, calling her name. Stark's woman looks disquieted to be left almost alone with Loki, stepping back further. She flinches as Loki strides past her. He barely notices. She is unimportant.

There is a high howl, and a cacophony of screaming.

_I'm hoping to go into the events of Angrboda's hall in greater depth later, but I want to explain the reference to troll-children here because it's another legend that has always interested me due to how bizarre and, in a modern context, hilarious it is. Loki was travelling somewhere and came across a fire on which a witch had been burned in another myth. The witch's heart was still sitting in the fire, and Loki was hungry, so he ate it. He became pregnant, and nine months later gave birth to the first trolls (still as a man, which sounds so painful that I don't even want to think about it :x) This makes Loki literally both Trolldad and Trollmom, and also the inventor of mpreg!_

_Long before Tom Hiddleston, Loki was one of my favourite deities partially because of how messed-up most of the myths concerning him are, but also because I found his tricksy, magical solutions to situations to be way more interesting than "Thor kills everything with a hammer, volume 784". What happened to the craftsman who built the walls of Asgard is a prime example. The craftsman wanted to be paid with the sun, moon and the hand of the goddess Freya if he completed the wall in nine seasons. The Aesir agreed, but gave him only three seasons, hoping to not have to pay him. The craftsman agreed, but asked to be allowed to use his giant horse, Svaolifari, to help him. To the surprise of the Aesir, with Svaolifari's help the craftsman made quick time and three days from the deadline looked to be almost finished. The Aesir discussed things and decided that it was Loki's fault (in some versions of the myths, when the craftsman asked for Svaolifari's help, Loki had spoken up on his behalf and convinced the other gods to give him a chance; in others, this didn't happen, and they just decided that it was Loki's fault because things generally were.) They told Loki that if he didn't sort it out they would kill him. So Loki transformed into a beautiful mare and lead Svaolifari to chase him through the forests. The craftsman lost a day's work chasing after Svaolifari, and ended up having to finish the wall on his own while Loki kept Svaolifari distracted. (Loki ended up stuck in the form of a mare for two years while pregnant with Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse.) He finished on time anyway, but then the Aesir discovered that he was a giant from Niflheim and took that excuse to kill him instead of paying him. While Loki's solution didn't work, I always found it more interesting and a lot less dickish than "let's just kill him"._

_A lot of myths about Loki are like that; since crossdressing, having troll babies and using magic was considered less manly than smashing stuff, he tended to get portrayed more negatively than Thor and Odin, even though Odin especially was arguably a tremendous dick in the old myths. I get the feeling that this is how Loki is viewed in MCU!Asgard; it's a warrior society full of people who glorify honourable battle, so Loki's magic and tricksy ways are considered sneaky and dishonourable, so he gets mistrusted and treated badly simply on the basis of being a sorcerer, and he started living down to everyone's expectations. Narfe and Vale probably weren't entirely popular children either, even before it became well-known that their dad was a genocidal psychopath._


	3. Monsters

_**Title**__: Vale: Monsters_

_**Words**__: 2838_

_**Main Character(s)**__: Vale Lokisson, Narfe Lokisson, Loki Laufeysson, Thor Odinsson, Peter Parker, Natasha Romanov, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Darcy Lewis, Nick Fury, Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton, Steve Rogers_

_**Notes**__: The wake of the attack leaves everyone with questions, not least concerning Loki and Vale, and possibly only Thor's trip home holds the answers. No mythological notes for this one because I haven't invoked any new myths. No ownie._

Peter panics as he hears screaming erupt above. Natasha is scrambling from Bruce's balcony to her own, and Peter throws up a web to Thor's to pull himself up faster, cursing himself for being too late.

The scene is not what he expects at all. There is blood and dead bodies are strewn across the floor, but they all seem to be gunmen. And in the middle of it all is a giant wolf, ripping a man's head from his body. Two gunmen are still alive and they open fire on the great wolf. The bullets seem to have no effect, other than making the wolf turn on them. Peter is frozen in horror as they are ripped apart.

He can see Jane and Darcy also frozen and staring. Jane has a hand over her mouth as if she's going to puke. A tall, dark-haired man in odd clothes strides past them, heading towards the wolf. It takes Peter a moment to recognize him as Loki, Thor's brother, whom he saw for the first time when Thor was informing him of Vale's arrival. Peter tenses, wondering if his spider webs can hold Loki and the wolf down.

The wolf, smelling new prey, turns and leaps on Loki. Loki thrusts up his arm and the wolf's jaws sink into it. Loki does not flinch from the powerful bite that ripped men apart, and by all rights should have taken his arm off. He does not react as the wolf snarls and worries at his arm.

"Be not a fool, Vale," he says sharply. "Or do you desire to be a monster, and receive a fitting fate?"

The wolf pauses. Peter can't help staring at the blood pouring from its mouth, soaking into the carpet. As it stills, Loki places his other hand on the wolf's forehead, his palm glowing green.

The wolf's eyes drift closed, and it shrinks as it slumps to the floor, becoming a sleeping humanoid child. _Vale_.

There is a groan from one of the mangled men on the floor. Loki looks down at the man in disgust, and then sharply stamps on the man's neck, killing him with a horrific _crack_. Jane and Darcy both scream in disgust and Pepper turns away, hands slammed over her mouth. Peter snaps out of it and slams Loki into the opposite wall with two blasts of web.

"_What the hell's going on, Pete_?" Tony says, flying over the balcony with Natasha.

"Bohze moi," she mutters, staring at the carnage, and then narrowing her eyes on Loki.

"Tony!" Pepper says, pointing to the centre of the carnage, where Vale is lying curled on the blood-soaked floor. She is trying to walk over to him, but her revulsion at the mangled bodies clearly has her on the edge of vomiting. "Vale..."

"What happened to him?" Natasha says sharply, striding through the bodies with little sign of disgust beyond a slight wrinkle to her nose to scoop the boy up. She grabs a blood-splattered quilt from the back of one of Thor's couches to wrap him in. "What did Loki do?"

"I did nothing," Loki said, glaring from her to Peter in disdain. There is sweat on his forehead. "Nothing but waste what little power I have regained because you worthless ants failed."

"I think he only killed one guy," Peter says. "Vale... the kid was a wolf when I got up here, Tony... Loki changed him back."

There is a sudden banging. Peter looks over to see a bathroom door beginning to shake as a green glow fades from the lock. It bursts open a moment later, and several people burst out, almost tripping over themselves as they stop short of the carnage.

"Oh my god," Aunt May shrieks, immediately leaning over Shanta to cover her eyes. A couple of people run back into the bathroom to puke.

"_Don't think he's going anywhere, Pete,_" Tony says, stepping over to Loki. Peter nods, flicking his wrist to disconnect the web and running over to comfort his aunt.

The power flickers back on. "_Guys, this is Bruce_," comes Doctor Banner's tired voice. "_I managed to get some of the power lines reconnected. SHIELD cleanup teams are here, they're going to send up jets to evacuate people..." _the comm crackles as he yawns hugely.

"_Thank you,_" Steve says. "_I've got prisoners..._" he starts relaying directions to SHIELD.

"_Shanta?_" Bruce interrupts. "_Are the civilians okay?_"

"Alive and unhurt," Natasha promises, switching off her comm before muttering to herself, "probably just traumatized for life..."

Loki is glaring at Natasha with an expression of utter hatred. Blood is soaking through the spider web holding him down.

{}

"I want to know where and how they got a goddamn teleport device," Fury says, half into his comm to the helicarrier and half to the Avengers congregated in Tony's bar.

"I want to know when the hell Dr Scargot met the Ten Rings," Tony says. "I do actually check for shit like that when I hire people, _especially_ to look after my damn Ark Reactor. Far as I can tell, they all came out at the same precise point, so they must've had coordinates. Or a second device that links to the first, but I haven't had a chance to shift through all of the machine parts on the floor down there... between the explosions to the power lines and the big guy, a lot of stuff got broken. We're working on it."

"And I hear tell Thor's little nephew went monster," Fury adds. A few Looks are thrown in Cint and Natasha's direction, which they pointedly ignore.

"He's asleep just now," Peter says. "I dunno if it's Loki's sleep spell or just that changing wore him out. Aunt May said he locked a bunch of the civilians into a bathroom before he changed, so he only really hurt the bad guys... Loki stopped him."

"It's a creepy thing to say, but Loki might have saved our lives," Pepper admits. "Vale didn't stop or change back straight away on his own. He went straight for the nearest target- Loki. He's got a really nasty bite on his arm for it."

"I suppose I could have a look at that," Bruce says, rubbing the back of his head. Transforming into the Hulk doesn't take quite as much out of him as it once did, but it still tends to wear him out and he's been tanking coffee steadily ever since hearing that Fury was coming down personally. "I'm working on getting qualified as a medical doctor, might as well get some practice in. I guess we owe him for stopping Vale. Though we also owe Vale for killing the bad guys. He saved Shanta's life, among others, by doing that."

"He also killed a lot of people," Natasha points out. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but we got lucky that Loki was out... what if he hadn't been there, and the closest target had been Jane, or Pepper?"

Tony clenches his fist involuntarily, sickened by the thought that he might just owe his fiancée's life to _Loki_. "I know Vale's just seemed like a sad kid over the past month," he says, "but I saw those men when the bodies were fresh. I don't like the thought that we've got somebody who can do that and can only be stopped by _Loki_ in my house."

"Yeah, because you've never let a dangerous monster into your house before," Bruce says wryly. Tony flinches.

"I didn't mean-" he begins, but Bruce waves him off.

"I know you didn't," he says mildly. "Just something to keep in mind, is what I'm saying."

"Thor thought he wouldn't change again," Steve says. "As soon as he gets back, we'll need to talk to him about this. If he's going back to Asgard, they'll need to know about it so they can deal with it. If not, maybe Bruce can work with him."

"It's true that it could have been a self-defence mechanism like the Hulk," Clint says. "When faced with an enemy he couldn't fight and couldn't escape, he had a third reaction."

"I'll see what I can do when he wakes up," Bruce says, standing up and rolling up his sleeves. "After I check on Shanta and see to Loki's arm. Work, work, work..." he ambles out of the room.

"...Officially, that kid ain't even here," Fury says quietly. "I kept it on the down-low from the WSC 'cause reports were he wasn't dangerous. If even one of your people talks about what went down up there, Tony, and the WSC hear, we're all gonna catch hell and they're gonna want to deal with him themselves."

"Hell, the only reason they eventually shut up about Loki was we proved he had no more power in him," Clint adds, "so if they hear he's working a little magic again, it's gonna go all kinds of bad."

"I'll talk to the staff," Pepper says to Tony, getting up. "I already convinced them to leave out what happened upstairs when giving their statements. I'll make it clear that their jobs are on the line if they talk."

"I ever tell you you're brilliant?" Tony says, giving her a kiss before she goes. "I mean, I know I tell people plenty that _I'm_ brilliant, but I need to say it just as much about you."

"You know, you really should," Pepper says, leaving. Tony looks back at Fury.

"I don't completely trust the kid, but he might not be our problem for too much longer," he says. "Thor went back to Asgard to find his mom. She oughta be able to fix him up. Until then, Fury, it'd be a _huge_ favour if you kept this quiet."

Fury sighed heavily. "I keep most of what you guys're up to quiet because I trust you-"

"And you have spies in our homes!" Tony adds, winking at Clint and Natasha.

"- and I've got bigger fish to fry figurin' out where the hell the Ten Rings are gettin' weapons and goddamn teleporters, so for now, this info ain't leavin' this building. But I'm trustin' you to fix this, to do me a favour and do just that."

"Yes sir," Steve says. Tony gets up.

"Well then, I'm gonna get back to fixing my building," he says. "Jarvis, keep an eye out for Vale waking up and Thor getting back and let me know one way or the other, got it?"

"Romanov, I could use your interrogation abilities," Fury says to the spy. "You comin'?"

"Yes, sir," Natasha says, following her out of the room. Truth be told, she can't get out of the building fast enough. Clint follows. He has a report to finish, and he needs some new arrowheads. Probably some of the explosive ones.

{}

"You gonna let me look at that arm?" Bruce asks casually, standing next to Loki with his hands in his pockets. Loki is reading an HP Lovecraft novel and does not look up or acknowledge Bruce's presence, though his left sleeve is heavy with blood and his fingers are twitching. Bloody fingerprints are smeared on the cover of the book. Bruce waits a few more moments, then reaches down to grab Loki's wrist. Loki shakes him off roughly, dropping the book onto the floor.

"Touch me not, creature," he spits out. Bruce allows the insult to prod him a little closer to The Other Guy, making his grip far stronger. When he grabs Loki's arm again, the tired god cannot break free. "_Release_ me!"

"Just let me look at it," Bruce says, pulling up Loki's sleeve. "Peter said he heard that bite scraping at the bo-"

He stops and stares, distracted enough that Loki slips his grip and furiously pushes him back, hard enough to knock Bruce over.

"Leave me, beast!" Loki snarls, utterly incensed. "What is this pitiful kindness? Do you intend to try to _help_ Vale, too? Knowing that, at any moment, he will change again, and who will he kill next? Those women? That insect boy? The little girl of yours? Next time he chooses the monster, I will not bother to stop him!"

Bruce leaves the room. Loki's threat against Shanta has pushed dangerously at his already tenuous control. He breathes deeply, focusing on his breathing techniques, and tries to focus on something clinical. Analysis of Loki's wound, as if it's a hypothetical problem in a textbook.

Dog bite. Large bite radius, a good eight inches. Deep bites, penetrating the epidermis and reaching the bone. Severe bleeding, to a level that would be dangerous to a human, though subject is not human so blood replenishment rate is unknown. Patient shows signs of fatigue, but could be mental fatigue from straining magical abilities. _That factor probably won't be on any exams._

Secondary wound noted, previous injury, extends from lower arm to inside elbow and may continue to upper arm. Analyze that, what kind of wound is it, beneath the discolouration, what was the injury that Loki tried to hide...

{}

Vale can feel the dream fading as he wakes up. He doesn't want it to. He likes the dream. He's home, with Mother and Narfe. Father isn't there, though. He was busy, because he was King for a while when Grandfather was asleep and Uncle Thor was gone, but then when Grandfather came back Father didn't.

Vale looks around for the door, hoping that Father will be back soon. All he sees is a mirror. He can feel Narfe's hand clutched in his, but in the mirror, Narfe's head is clutched in his jaws.

Vale's eyes snap open. He doesn't want to be in that dream anymore.

"Hi, Vale," Lady Darcy says. She is sitting next to his bed, tapping away at a computer. Behind her are two guards, standing by the door. Vale is sure that they are guards, because they are wearing the same clothes and have Midgardian weapons strapped to them. They are here because Vale is dangerous. Because he's a monster.

Vale shies away, pulling the sheet over his head. He can remember, a little, because this time he did it on purpose. He can remember screaming, and his throat tastes of blood.

"_Be not a fool, Vale. Or do you desire to be a monster, and receive a fitting fate?"_

"It's okay, Vale," Lady Darcy says, touching his shoulder and trying to gently tug the blanket away. "It's all okay now. Only the bad guys got hurt."

Vale peeks out. "I hurt them," he says quietly. "Did I rip them apart, like Narfe?"

Darcy flinches. "Don't worry about it," she insists, tapping the computer again. They're in every room here, and they remind him of his mother's pool. When the right spells are recited, other people and places can be seen in it. Here, Lady Darcy calls upon Lord Jarvis to contact Bruce. Vale looks at the guards, who are watching him closely. They must know what he is; would a mere child really warrant such suspicion?

"Lady Darcy?" Vale asks. "How did I stop? Before, they said that Grandfather stopped me. Is Grandfather here?"

"No, but your uncle'll be back soon," Lady Darcy says brightly. "And Shanta's daddy wants to talk to you. He's going to help you, until it's time for you to go home."

"I can't go home," Vale whispers. "I killed Narfe there. They won't let me back. Mother doesn't want to see me, because I did terrible things. Like... like Father. They said that he did bad things, too."

"You're nothing like him, Vale," Lady Darcy says sharply. "I don't know what anyone told you about your dad, but you're nowhere _near_ as bad as him. Seriously, you're a nice kid." She pats him on the shoulder. "Sure surprised me to find that a nice kid like you was _Loki_'s son."

"Nobody will tell me really what Father did," Vale admits. "They won't tell me because I'm a kid. But Narfe and I, we had hiding places, and we heard adults whispering. That Father did terrible things. That he was a monster, and not even a son of Odin, really."

Lady Darcy sighs. "I don't know, kiddo," she says. "I got no idea what's goin' on in Asgard, but I promise, _I_ don't think you're bad, okay? I promise."

Vale nods, grateful. If she has given her word, she must believe it. It does not mean that it's true, but she believes it.

Vale wants his uncle. Uncle Thor has been kind to him, even when Mother doesn't want to see him. He wants to ask him about Father. He wants to know if Father is a monster. He wants to know if Father thinks _he_ is a monster.

Most of all, he wants things to go back to the way they were when he and Narfe were small, Father was there and Mother was happy, but now it all feels like a lie. Monsters don't get peace.

_My mythology feels have crossbred with my Avengers feels and the resultant eight-legged horse baby plunnies are rampaging out of control. _


	4. Unveiling

_**Title**__: Vale: Unveiling_

_**Words**__: 3130_

_**Main Character(s)**__: Vale Lokisson, Narfe Lokisson, Loki Laufeysson, Thor Odinsson, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Jane Foster_

_**Notes**__: Thor makes some unpleasant discoveries when he returns from Asgard. No ownie._

"There we go," Tony says as the sky over New York is abruptly covered with heavy clouds full of pulsating light. Steve reaching Thor's flat before Tony does, and Peter and Bruce both appear before Thor appears in a strike of lightning.

"What happened here?" Thor says, taking in the blood-soaked room. Tony's had the bodies removed, but prevented the cleaning crew from coming in until Thor sees the magnitude of what just happened. It's also a good reason to keep Vale in his room; panicking him with the remnants of the carnage he caused will probably do him no good.

"I thought you said Vale wouldn't transform anymore," Steve says sternly. Thor goes white.

"Who did he kill?" he whispers.

"Luckily, it was only the terrorists that attacked the building," Peter says. "He didn't hurt any of the good guys. Well, Loki got a pretty bad bite on his arm too…"

"He freaked out when I tried to look at it," Bruce says. "I think it's because of the scarring on his arm."

Thor's brow furrows. "Scarring?" He asks. "What do you mean?"

"You're gonna have to ask him that," Tony says. "What's gonna happen about Vale?"

"His mother will come for him soon," Thor says, walking around the blood-soaked floor. "When her mourning for Narfe has ended. Until then…" he rubs his chin. "Is he still a wolf?"

"Loki turned him back into a boy," Steve explains. "For that matter, care to explain why he can still do magic?"

"…I must have words with my brother," Thor says, striding off down the hall. "Then I will speak to Vale."

"All the go," Bruce mutters, watching him go.

"Hey, while you two are here," Tony says, turning to him and Peter, "we found some bits downstairs that aren't from any of my machinery. Want to come have a look?"

"So I'm supposed to call back your cleaning crews for you?" Steve complains loudly to Tony's back.

"Thanks, dear," Tony calls as the mad scientists get into the lift.

"Great, now there's three of them…" Steve mutters. "Jarvis? Can you call the SHIELD cleanup crew back for me?"

{}

Loki strains at his power as he passes his hand over the wounds on his arm. Healing has never been a specialty of his, but it is ridiculous how much difficulty he is having with this simple injury. The punctures are still there, but shallower now.

Loki pulls his sleeve down, frustrated at how exhausted he now feels. He will not sleep, not here, not yet. He will not be so vulnerable again.

It burns at him, the look in the creature's eyes as he saw the scar on Loki's arm. There was pity there! _Pity_! That that filthy _beast_ should pity _Loki_ was intolerable. When Loki's full powers return to him, he swears, that beast will _burn_.

Thor has mentioned to him before that the beast had been spending time with Vale, too. Probably trying to connect with him, to _sympathize_ with him, as he tried with Loki. It always makes him laugh. As if that beast can _understand_ him, or _help_ him. It is even more laughable now. The scene that Loki walked into was all too reminiscent of the carnage before Angrboda's hall, so long ago.

It is all too clear now that Loki's own monstrosity taints all he touches. There was never any hope for Val; it is perhaps a blessing that Narfe died before he, too, could become a monster, like all of Loki's kin. Perhaps one day, Sleipnir will break from his stable and trample Thor's idiotic head into the dirt with every hoof. It might be too much to wish for.

After all, Loki has already seen Thor's death. And caused it.

Thor looks concerned as he steps into Loki's room. Loki sneers. No doubt he has spoken to the beast. Well, before long it will matter no longer.

{}

"Let me see your arm, Loki," Thor says. Loki crosses his arms, shielding the wounded one, not looking up at his brother.

"Your creature talks too much," he murmurs. "I ought to thread his lips."

"Loki," Thor says sternly, "_show me_."

Loki looks at him, an unpleasant smile curling his lips. "As you wish, your highness," he says mockingly, laying aside his coat and removing his shirt. Thor hasn't seen him change clothes all year; he knows that Loki often uses low-level magic to clean, repair and alter his clothes. It is for this reason that the wounds have gone unnoticed by all of them.

It isn't just the one on Loki's inner arm, the one Bruce noticed that does indeed extend halfway up his bicep. There's a criss-cross of scars across his upper chest, another on his stomach and other arm, some extending round his back. All of the wounds are mottled blue and black, either so damaging or so traumatic that Loki's Aesir glamour cannot cover them and his Jotun skin shows through.

"What is this?" Thor demands, horrorstruck. "Loki, where did you get these?"

"Souvenirs, memories, of the edge of space..." Loki says, humming as he picks up a book lying on the end of his unused bed and begins to read, half-ignoring Thor. "So very quiet, out among the stars... So full of lost creatures howling..."

"Who inflicted these, Loki?" Thor demands, his hand griping Mjolnir's handle. Loki looks at him, and then begins to laugh hysterically.

"And what?" He giggles. "It is far to travel just to die, Thor. There are many easier ways to see my daughter. You missed her yesterday, you know, she was very busy, her friend was bringing her such heavy loads. Puppet corpses, one and all, killing and dying like the Chitauri..."

Thor sat on the end of his bed, his head in his hands. "Brother, please let Doctor Banner look at those," he sighed, rubbing his forehead as he tries to make sense of his brother's babble.

"Keep that creature from my sight," Loki says sharply.

"Abuse him not, for he is a good man," Thor says, watching Loki's clothes reform over him, hiding the ugly wounds once more.

"He embraces the monster and yet wishes to call himself a man?" Loki says scornfully. "Foolish."

"We must see to your injuries, Loki," Thor says, watching red soak into Loki's sleeve again. "That bite is still bleeding."

Loki laughs again. "This is nothing!" He says. "Wounds are nothing, pain is sweet, and Death is little but a kindness. Why fear it, _dear brother_, when we know what awaits? For you, no doubt, Valhalla, and for me, the hope that my daughter is lenient to her old father. Why fear it?" He stands up suddenly, tossing the book aside and slapping Thor full across the face. Thor's head snaps to the side. "Why fear it, oh Mighty Thor?" Loki hisses. "Why not kill me now?"

"Because whatever your madness tells you, you are still my brother," Thor says firmly, looking back at Loki. "I wish only to help you."

Loki bursts out laughing again. "When have _you_ ever been able to help _me_?" He gasps, clutching his stomach as he shakes with laughter. Thor flinches. "How could you ever help me? I am a monster that fears nothing but that which I so richly deserve. If you wish to _help_ me, if you wish to be _kind_, then kill me now!"

"Do not ask that of me, brother," Thor says quietly, standing up. "I thought you dead once. I will not see it again."

"How very selfish of you," Loki says, returning to his seat.

"I will ask Doctor Banner to come back again to see to your arm and other wounds," Thor says. "Please, brother, let us help you."

Loki does not respond again, only laughing loudly, his laughter following Thor out of the room.

{}

Thor stops to compose himself before visiting Vale, but even so the boy flinches at the sight of him.

"I'm sorry, Uncle," he says, burying his head in his hands. Thor places a hand on his nephew's shoulder.

"Do not apologize, Vale," he says gently. "It is not your fault."

"But I did it on purpose!" Vale wails. "I turned into- into a _monster_ on purpose…"

"For reasons that were not evil," Thor says firmly. "Listen, Vale. Now we know that you may transform again, you must learn to control these transformations. It is a blessing that you are able to change back. Others have not been so lucky. Your mother's blood protects you, no doubt. Water is flowing and ever-changing, after all. Her mourning for Narfe will end soon, and then I think she intends to take you home."

Vale flinches again. "Back to Asgard?" he says tremulously. "I do not wish to go there, Uncle- please don't make me go back…!" He's starting to panic, his hands fisting until the knuckles go white. Thor grabs his hands, squeezing them gently.

"Be calm, Vale," he says soothingly. "Your mother wishes to live in the water meadows. She desires to live among Asgardians no more than you do. I am sure that she will be able to help you. Until then, Doctor Banner wishes to work with you."

"He is Shanta's father," Vale says. "Though not really. Their blood is not the same."

"No," Thor says firmly, "but that is irrelevant. Listen to me well, Vale. Family is not merely those whose blood you share. Family are those that you love and who love you in return. I think you know, Vale, that you and I share no blood, nor do your father and I, but nevertheless I consider him my brother and you my nephew, and I will have words with any who disagree!" He taps the handle of Mjolnir.

Vale nods. "Thank you… Uncle," he says, the last word a little hesitant but with feeling. "A Doctor is like a Healer, is it not? Will he fix me?"

"You're not broken, Vale," Thor says. "_Not yet_," he thinks sorrowfully, "_and the stars willing, not ever._"

"I turn into a monster," Vale argues.

"So does the Doctor," Thor says. "Have you been told about The Hulk?"

"Shanta said that her father used to transform into a green giant," Vale says. Thor shakes his head.

"He still does," he explains. "Ever since a scientific accident, the Doctor has been capable of transforming into a giant creature called the Hulk, incredibly powerful but with none of Bruce's intelligence. At first, the Hulk only came out when the Doctor lost control, and was a beast rampaging out of control, destroying all in its path." Thor smiles as understanding dawns on Vale's face. "It took him many years to learn control. Now, he and the Hulk are one. Last year, I fought by the side of the Hulk and did not fear it, for it was our ally in defending Midgard." He rubs his neck, opting to omit how the Hulk settled their battle from less than a day prior. "He wishes to help you find what you need to control the wolf, Vale. Learn control, and then it will be up to you whether to suppress the wolf, or to use it for good."

"Could it be used for good?" Vale asks, eyes wide.

"That choice is yours," Thor says, placing his hand to his nephew's neck affectionately. Vale smiles and closes his eyes briefly at the touch, like a puppy getting its ears scratched.

{}

"The power signature's pretty similar to the Ark Reactor," Peter says, pointing Doctor Banner to some readouts being taken from the glowing blue core of the device they recovered. Tony has taken holographic copies of the pieces and is reconstructing the device in the air in front of him. "That's why Jarvis didn't pick anything up. It was dwarfed by the reactor itself."

"Doesn't seem to be Starkium, though," Tony says, glancing at the readouts.

"Did you finally give up on the Badassium patent?" Bruce asks, not looking up from some radiation comparisons he was running.

"Yeah, so I settled for the name with more _me_ in it," Tony says thoughtfully. "Anyway, I'm thinking, y'know what this seems pretty similar in design and power to?"

"Exactly," Bruce says, nodding and throwing a power comparison into the air. The power readout of the device exactly matches an archived radiation comparison. "Diagnostics indicate that the core element is identical, and that pretentious physical design…"

"Similar or identical to what?" Peter asks. "Can we please get out of the doublespeak? It's cute that you guys have your own little language and all, but-"

"Loki's sceptre," Tony says, summoning up a holographic projection of a four-foot-long staff with a large jewel set in the top and a lethal-looking spike arcing over it. The detailing on the staff was not dissimilar to the engravings on the outside of the device. "Loki had this with him last year. Pretty serviceable physical weapon, and it also gave him some kinda freaky mind-control powers. Ask Barton about it sometime, if you're feeling ballsy. All we know about it's that Loki didn't get it from the Chitauri."

"Doesn't match the design and power of Chitauri tech at all," Bruce mutters, examining the teleport device. "Hmm. If we can find a power signature of that nature somewhere else on the planet at the corresponding times…"

"Did you ask Loki where it was from?" Peter asks. He gets a couple of those looks that suggest that he's asked an obvious and stupid question. Tony and Bruce are good at giving them to people with a creepy level of synchronicity.

"He claims it's of a 'higher power'," Bruce says dryly, "whatever the hell that means from a guy that might be a god…"

"Thor took it to some Asgardian craftsmen," Tony says, making the projection of the sceptre vanish. "Far as we know, they've still got it. They couldn't identify the design, suggesting it's not exactly from this corner of the Universe, but the jewel's made outta the same stuff as the Tessarect, which _maaaaaaaaay_ be the same as the element right here." He taps the glowing circle on his chest pointedly.

"The Tessa-thing is…?" Peter asks, getting a little fed up with not being able to keep up. After three months, the excitement at actually being asked to join a superhero team and intern for one of the top scientists in the world has ceded somewhat to the feeling that he's getting at least a little in over his head. He feels like he's missed a lot concerning Loki.

"It's a power source from Asgard," Bruce explains. "Or at least, it's being kept on Asgard. It was taken from some kind of alien warlord that Odin defeated a long time ago, from outside the Nine Realms, Thor says."

"What are the Nine Realms?" Peter asks. "Galaxies? The planets and Pluto?"

"Not too sure on that one," Tony says. "You'll have to ask Doctor Foster, but I'd be quick about it. I hear she's shipping out to an observatory in Alaska tomorrow."

"She is?" Peter asks. "Why?"

{}

"I understand, Jane," Thor says patiently. Jane runs her hand through her hair, feeling like he's taking this entirely too calmly.

"I've been neglecting my research all month," she says. "I don't feel like I'm any help here. I can't help Vale, and I…" she hangs her head. She shouldn't gloss things over, not for Thor. "I'm scared, Thor. When Loki got out… except for when we thought the Destroyer killed you, I've never been so scared in my life. I don't have powers like you, or Bruce, or Peter… everything that's going on here is just in over my head, and I… I don't feel like I can help you with any of it. I want to do more than just sit and hold your hand, Thor."

"Jane, it is fine," Thor says, standing up and wrapping his arms around her. "I know that you support what I hope to achieve with Vale, and it means everything to me. You are a genius, Jane, and should not be wasted. Your work is brilliant, and will advance your world among the stars. And I will confess myself that I will feel some relief that you are far from here. This place is dangerous, of a sudden. If that attack was the first wave, it will lighten my heart to know that you are far out of the way of the second."

"I just… feel like I'm running away and leaving you," Jane sighs, leaning into him.

"While I have felt as if I am neglecting you," Thor says. "I do not want you to feel as if you are not important to me, Jane, but since Narfe's death…"

"Vale is important, Thor," Jane says, breaking away and turning to face him. "I would never expect you to abandon a family member who needs you. You've got such a big heart, Thor. I get the feeling that the more people you love, the bigger it is. I don't think I'd love you so much if you abandoned people so easily." Even on her tiptoes, she can't quite reach her gigantic boyfriend's lips, but luckily he reads her well and leans down to kiss her.

"Thank you, Jane," he says, sinking down on the couch and rubbing his beard. "I must confess, my need to help Vale is not entirely selfless. I just… I cannot fail again, Jane," he says softly and with a depth of vulnerability not often shown. "I failed Loki too often. I cannot fail his son. I _cannot_."

"A lot of things combined to make Loki the way he is," Jane says, sitting down by his side and taking his hand. "He's not some helpless child. He made plenty of bad decisions on his own. You can't blame yourself entirely."

"But there were many junctures at which I could have helped him, yet only made things worse," Thor says mournfully. "I did it too often. He did trust me once, Jane. He once shared with me alone the secret closest to his heart, and when I tried to help him I only made things far worse, and it ended in disaster due to me. If he had never told me about Angrboda…"

"Who's Angrboda?" Jane asks.

"It is… a long tale," Thor says, looking around. "You need rest before your flight…"

"Oh, I'll sleep on the plane," Jane says dismissively. "Besides, as a scientist I only need an hour of sleep a day. C'mon, I'm done packing and I'm curious. Tell me the story. Who was Angrboda?" She settles down against his side on the sofa. Thor sighs, giving in, and wraps his arm around her.

_Next chapter will be another myth retelling. If you're a myth geek like me, you probably know generally what's coming. It's not gonna be a happy one. Some Thor/Jane stuff too, because I like them. I feel like their attraction is based on a lot of mutual respect as much as she's Natalie Portman and he's Chris Hemsworth and who DOESN'T want to snog them? :x But one of the first compliments that Thor pays Jane, in the movie is to tell her that she's "clever, far more clever than anyone else in this realm", and when talking to her about astronomy as it's known on Asgard he doesn't talk down to her as an ignorant Midgardian. Thor fascinates Jane professionally as much as personally, I think, because her work is everything to her. So I don't see them as a couple that lets their emotions run their relationship; they're both capable of treating things in a level-headed way without loving each other any less or doubting their love for each other any less. It's the kind of relationship I'd like to have. Dating a guy that looks like Chris Hemsworth or a girl that looks like Natalie Portman wouldn't hurt, either :x_


	5. Angrboda

_**Title**__: Vale 5: Angrboda_

_**Words**__:_

_**Main Character(s)**__: Thor Odinsson, Jane Foster, Loki Odinsson, Angrboda, Hela Lokidottir, The Lady Sif, Fenrir Lokisson, Jorgamund Lokisson_

_**Notes**__: Loki's first logn-term relationship ended very badly indeed. Thor blames himself, and Loki does too. Lots of mythological flashbacking and more Thor x Jane. I also wanted to tell a story that showed that, while Thor and Loki were once as close as Thor thought they still were at the time of the movie, there was also a point where Loki lost a lot of faith in his big brother and trust in his father._

"_Brother!" Thor said jovially, vaulting over the balcony he was sitting on and startling Loki as he tried to sneak back into the halls of Odin. "Snuck out again, did you?"_

"_I can't imagine what you mean," Loki asked calmly. Thor grinned and clapped him on the shoulder._

"_Come, brother, do not waste your talent for deception," he said mockingly. "I noticed you sneaking out some time ago. Where do you slip to?" He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Is it a woman?"_

"_Perhaps," Loki said idly. Thor slapped him on the back._

"_That is wonderful!" He exclaimed. "You ought not to sneak to see a woman, brother! Is she beautiful? She must be, to enchant you so! You must let us meet her!"_

"_That will not be possible," Loki muttered._

"_But why not?" Thor asked in confusion. Loki glanced around nervously and leaned closer to Thor._

"_Brother, I will tell you who she is," he said quietly, "but I beg of you, it must be kept a secret!"_

"_You have my word," Thor promised, bemused. "But why?"_

"_Her name is Angrboda," Loki said reluctantly. "And she... she is a giantess."_

"_...That is not funny, Loki," Thor admonished him. "Tell me truly; who is she?"_

"_I do not jest, Thor!" Loki hissed. "I swear, she is not a brute like so many of her kin. She's different... a sorceress of some talent, though she will never be recognized as such because of her kind... she's fascinating." He looked away as he blushed somewhat._

"_You are serious," Thor said quietly, staring intently at his brother. "You know it is forbidden?"_

"_Why do you think I have been sneaking?" Loki snapped. "There will be no trouble. She keeps a hall in the Iron Wood, the better to practice her witchcraft. I beg of you, Thor, tell no-one!"_

"_Do you love her, Loki?" Thor asked solemnly. Loki only nodded, looking down. "Then you have my word. I swear upon my soul that I shall speak of this nobody, not even Sif. Be careful, brother."_

"_You ought to be careful too, brother," Loki said lightly, looking relieved, "if you intend to keep secrets from your wife..."_

{}

"Wife?" Jane asks, startled. "You're _married_?" She jerks away from her warm position, leaning against his side on the couch, uncomfortably remembering mythological ideals of fidelity and the lack thereof.

"I was," Thor says, looking amused but thankfully understanding of her sudden panic. "We drifted apart after a few centuries and separated. Sif is still a dear friend to me, but we do not- and, I suspect, cannot- love each other as we once did. It happens, sometimes, and it is accepted on Asgard that not all unions last millennia like that of my parents." He looks saddened. "My brother's fears about how his relationship with Angrboda would be viewed were probably only heightened by knowing that his relationship would be contrasted with mine in the eyes of the Asgardians."

"I think I know the feeling," Jane says, hanging back a little hesitantly from him. A year is nowhere near enough to learn about a millennium of life, but it's another one of those moments where Jane feels like she's barely scratched the surface of Thor's life and may never make a dent in it. She sighs wrapping her arms around him and drawing him close, wishing she could do something to alleviate the sadness that always overtook him where his brother was concerned these days. To make _some_ impact. "My cousin got married straight out of high school to a nice guy in med school. He's a doctor now, and they've got a couple of kids, and my aunt is _always_ making comments about me "playing around with lab equipment like a boy instead of finding a nice guy at her age"... I'm only twenty-six, for pity's sake, not some crazy old spinster!" She kissed him on the cheek. "Besides, I certainly found an interesting guy while chasing those stars..."

"Your aunt ought to be ashamed of herself for not appreciating your intellect," Thor says, wrapping an arm around her waist. "Your research is far beyond anyone else in this realm! I have no doubt that you will revolutionize the capabilities of Midgard! Besides," he adds with a grin, "by Asgardian standards, twenty-six is barely a toddler. Sif and I were not married until we were over a hundred and thirty."

Jane is a little uncomfortable now about mentions of Sif, seeing the lady warrior in a very different light now knowing that she's the celestial ex, as it were. "Loki couldn't get married to Angrboda, could he?"

"Actually, he was," Thor explains. "By Asgardian terms, a couple- or trio, it is not unheard of- who love each other and share bedchambers are considered married." Jane goes very red as she realizes the implications for their own relationship. "I understand that that is not the Midgardian definition. When the time is right, if you are agreeable to it, I should like to honour our relationship in the tradition of your people."

"...was that a proposal?" Jane asks. "If so, it was the weirdest one I've ever heard." She shakes her head. "Maybe it's something we should talk about later. When I'm back from my research trip and things with Vale have settled down... tell me more about Loki and Angrboda."

"If you wish," Thor says, inwardly breathing a sigh of relief that she didn't outright shoot him down. That was not as hard as Tony has led him to believe. "Loki was still studying magic at the time, and often took trips to look for enchanted locations or sorcerers of various skills. Many of these trips were simply cover to spend weeks or months with Angrboda, living together, sleeping together, and raising their children."

"Children?" Jane asks.

{}

_Thor found Loki sitting alone, staring into a fire. He was wearing his dark green travelling clothes, which Thor now suspected meant that he had in fact been slipping into the woods to visit Angrboda. He had heard that Loki had returned and had sought to welcome him back, but his brother's face when he thought himself alone gave Thor pause. Loki was pale, his eyes were somewhat swollen, and he looked deeply worried._

"_What troubles you, Brother?" Thor asked, sitting across the fire from him. Loki looked past Thor nervously, checking that his brother was alone, immediately telegraphing to Thor that this latest trip had indeed been time spent with Angrboda. "It is only me, Loki. What is wrong?"_

"_The healing magic I have studied is not enough," Loki muttered, rubbing a hand over his forehead tiredly. "I need someone with a Gift for healing, Brother. Someone who will be discreet."_

"_Discreet?" Thor leaned forward. "Is she alright?"_

"_Not the she you are thinking of," Loki said. "We... we have a daughter. Her name is Hela."_

"_What?" Thor cried, leaping to his feet and rounding the fire to sit by Loki. Loki looked around, frightened._

"_Brother, keep your voice down, please!" He hissed._

"_I am sorry," Thor apologized. "It is simply a sudden- but pleasant!- surprise to learn that I have a niece." He smiled and clapped his brother on the shoulder. "Mother will not be happy that you have kept her granddaughter from her!"_

"_She's sick, Thor," Loki interrupted quietly. "She has been since the day she was born, and I... I am at my wit's end for what to do. She is in constant pain, and I cannot help her."_

_All of Thor's joviality faded instantly. "And that is why you need a Healer," he said solemnly. "I see."_

"_I fear that any Healer of Asgard will not see a giantess' child," Loki muttered. "Or that they will not keep it a secret..." he flexed his fingers nervously. "Perhaps if I can convince one to see her, and then... there are other spells I have learned, to erase or alter memory..."_

"_Fret not, Brother," Thor cut him off. "There is no need to misuse your magic so. I will speak to Groa. A more gifted Healer I have never known, and I am sure that I can prevail upon her to be discreet."_

"_The lady Sif may not be amenable of you paying a visit to your old lover," Loki said wryly._

"_I will go now, and we will try to resolve this swiftly," Thor said firmly. "And I will come with you to see Hela. If I may meet with Angrboda, I might be able to vouch for her to Father, and your family may be allowed to live within Asgard. You will have to sneak out to see them no longer!"_

"_It is forbidden," Loki whispered. _

"_Our Father is King," Thor said firmly. "It is for him to decide that which is and is not forbidden. Come, we shall go now to Groa. My niece will not suffer a minute longer!"_

{}

"I confess, I was excited at the prospect of having my niece around because Sif and I had no children of our own," Thor sighs.

"Why not?" Jane asks. "Didn't you want any?" She grins. "Two hundred considered too young for that?"

"It was not that," Thor says. "We thought sometimes that we would like children someday, but it is an old law that the heir to the throne may not have heirs of his own until he is King. Or lives are long on Asgard, and in the past, when the generations piled up, there was fighting, father against son. It is sensible enough. I do look forward to the honour of fatherhood, someday, when I am King. I wonder if I would be a worthwhile father, though. I cannot even help Vale..."

"Vale needs time, Thor, and his situation is pretty unusual," Jane says, filing that information away under "things to discuss at length when there's time". She's never been a hugely "family" type, aside from being a bit of a daddy's girl, so the thought that she and Thor may not have a family together hits her less than the recurring thought that Thor will go on for thousands of years after her death and that, by Asgardian standards, theirs will be a brief, whirlwind relationship. "So what happened? What was wrong with Hela?"

Thor sighs heavily. "I am afraid that "ill" was a terrible understatement for Hela's condition."

{}

_Groa looked unhappy about being outwith the walls of Asgard, but as Thor had hoped her good heart had been moved by the thought of a child suffering._

_Angrboda's hall was in fact built into the trunk of a gigantic, ancient tree. Thor could only imagine how much life energy was flowing through such a giant thing. No doubt it amplified the sorceress' powers, and Loki's._

_Loki knocked twice on the large door. "Boda," he called. "It is I, Loki. I have brought a Healer to see Hela."_

_The door creaked open. Angrboda was very tall, as would be expected of a giantess, swathed in sleek fur robes, but her face was unusually beautiful for her kind. She had thick, dark blonde hair tied into a heavy knot at the back of her neck and large, dark brown eyes. _

"_It is an honour to meet you, Lady Angrboda," Thor said politely. "So this is the woman who has so enchanted my brother! I am Thor and this is the Lady Groa, the finest Healer in all of Asgard."_

_Angrboda extended her hand to Thor. He kissed it, and stepped back to allow her to shake Groa's hand._

"_I cannot trust Asgardians," she said. Her voice was quite deep. "I shall accompany you to see my daughter."_

"_Of course," Thor agreed. "We will all go."_

"_This way," Loki said, leading them across the cavernous hall and towards a twisting spiral staircase that went up into the tree. Groa stayed close to Thor's side, holding his arm._

"_I do not like this," she muttered to Thor. "I feel watched."_

_Thor nodded. He thought he had seen something watching them from behind a door more than once as they ascended through level after level, but he did not want to dwell too long about what might be running around the home of two sorcerers. "I swear to you that no harm will befall you here," he promised. _

_Hela was lying curled under a thick fur wrap on a bed in a small room. She looked much like her father, with sharp features and long black hair, but when her eyes opened, they could see through the haze of pain that they were nearly black like her mother's. _

"_Father," she whispered, reaching out to Loki. He took her hand in both of his, kneeling down next to the head of her bed._

"_I have found a Healer who may be able to help you," he said softly. "Just lie still." Hela's eyes drifted closed again as Loki massaged her hand, perhaps trying to enchant some of her pain away._

"_I must examine her," Groa said, kneeling next to Loki. Thor kept one eye on Angrboda, who was watching Groa's every move with deep suspicion. "May I remove her wrap?"_

_Loki blanched, but nodded. Angrboda's eyes narrowed. Thor's gaze drifted to Hela, wondering what could be putting the girl in such great pain._

_Loki snapped his fingers and a few balls of fire appeared, wrapping themselves gently around Hela without harming her. She was shivering violently, but perhaps it was pain rather than cold; the fire did only a little to soothe her._

_Groa gently lifted aside the furs. Hela was wearing a long green dress that extended past her feet, curled on her side as she was. Groa frowned. The shape of her legs was odd. She lifted aside the bottom of Hela's skirt, and then dropped it with a shriek._

_Hela's feet and legs were those of a skeleton; not merely thin and emaciated, but literally nothing but bones._

"_She has been like this since she was born," Loki muttered. "Can you help her?"_

"_This child is half-death," Groa said shakily. "There is only one help that can be afforded to her." He suddenly drew a knife from her belt, raising it over her head._

"_No!" Angrboda yelled, grabbing Groa's arm. With a _crunch_, she broke it. Groa screamed and dropped her knife._

"_Let her go!" Thor shouted, charging Angrboda and throwing her away from Groa. The Healer staggered back, clutching her broken arm. Thor placed himself between her and Angrboda, who was snarling angrily, the feral brutality that her kind was known for writ across her beautiful face. Her eyes had turned vivid red, the glamour that she had woven to hide their true colour burning away in her rage._

"_She will continue to rot and only be in more pain until she is killed!" Groa screamed. "She is an abomination!"_

"_Hold your tongue!" Loki yelled angrily. Angrboda roared in rage and charged._

"_Calm yourself!" Thor demanded, matching her wild swing with a more powerful one of his own, knocking her back._

"_Angrboda!" Loki called, running to her. He looked up at Thor in anguish."Groa!" He said sharply. Thor turned. The Healer had fled._

_Thor took off after her, Loki and Angrboda's shouting ringing the halls behind him and still feeling watched._

{}

"I failed to catch Groa before she returned to Asgard," Thor remembers. "It was chaos. Groa is a respected Seer and her husband a mighty warrior. He rallied many others to believe that Hela was an abomination, fit only to be killed, and many agreed after hearing about the terrible state of her body. It was not difficult, either, to convince them that Angrboda was a savage monster."

"But... she was defending her child," Jane points out. "Breaking someone's arm is pretty nasty, but if someone tried to kill Shanta, could any of us blame Bruce for Hulking out on them?"

"I agree," Thor says, "But Angrboda was a giantess- not just any giantess, but as we realized from her red eyes, a _Jotun_. I'm afraid that prejudice against her kind remains to this day rife in Asgard."

"She... _was_ a giantess?" Jane asks.

"As I said before," Thor says grimly, "it ended badly."

_In the myths, Angrboda is mentioned only briefly as both a Jotun and a witch living in the Iron Woods, and both times only in the context of being the mother of Fenrir, Jorgamund and Hela by Loki. In the context of the MCU, I have no doubt that Angrboda's race would be a huge deal, and that the whole affair would be a lot more damaging personally to Loki than was ever mentioned in the mythology :/ _

_While it's very common for Hela to be depicted as a sort of female Two-Face, half of her face a beautiful woman's with the other half a skull, the rot extending symmetrically down her body, the myths tend to describe her as being a woman down to the waist and a skeleton below that, so I went with that. Don't ask me how her feet and leg bones are holding together; both of her parents are sorcerers. Literally, a wizard did it, maybe :x Also, I figure her condition is less due to being a halfbreed (which, in-universe, is what Asgardians at the time would have attributed it to) but just more due to the fact that she was the occasional unlucky child chosen by the Norns… _

_This ended up going much longer than I thought, so the second half is the rest of my retelling of the myth. Hope you're finding it interesting!_


	6. Desolation

_**Title**__: Vale: Desolation_

_**Words**__: 3268_

_**Main Character(s):**__ Thor Odinsson, Loki Odinsson, Angrboda Ironwitch, Fenrir Lokisson, Jorgamund Lokisson, Hela Lokidottir, The Lady Sif, Aurvandil the Bold, Jane Foster_

_**Notes**__: Continued from the previous chapter, the flashbacked resolution of the Angrboda situation. It does not end well._

"_I beg of you, Father, try for a peaceful solution if there is one," Thor said. "There is no need for fighting."_

" '_Tis unusual indeed to hear _you_ beg for peace," Sif said coolly. She had been hurt and angry that Thor had not trusted her with the secret, and could not understand how Thor could defend a Jotun. Thor himself was uncomfortable defending Angrboda, but it was not she who he was worried about._

"_I ask for Loki's sake," Thor said, looking back at the soldiers Aurvandil had massed. "There is no need for this."_

"_I promise to speak to Angrboda myself, if she is willing," Odin said calmly, "but the King of Asgard cannot meet a Jotun sorceress alone. I am ashamed of you, Thor, for not coming to me sooner, before it came to this."_

"_...Forgive me, Father," Thor said sullenly as they entered the forest and followed the almost indiscernible path to Angrboda's hall._

_Odin called for a halt as someone came into sight coming down the path. Loki's face faded into view before his dark green clothes, for it was deathly pale. He could not meet Odin's eyes._

"_Angrboda is not willing to trust Asgardians in her home again," he said. "Please, Father, go back. There is nothing to be said here."_

"_On the contrary, there is much I have to say to you," Odin said sternly. Loki flinched. "Loki, if Hela is to be helped, she must be brought to Asgard. I cannot abandon my granddaughter to suffer!"_

"_You can't take Hela away!"_

_Two teenage boys had appeared in the tree branches above Loki. Both of their eyes were flashing red as they watched the group of Asgardians suspiciously. The taller one had Loki's black hair, though far more unruly, while the smaller one was a sleek blond. Their features were broad, like Angrboda's._

"_Fenrir, Jorgamund, go back," Loki ordered urgently. "I will not let them take your sister. Now go."_

"_Mother says that Asgardians aren't to be trusted," the older boy spat. "They think they're so high and mighty, coming here and doing whatever they want!"_

"_Fenrir!" Loki said sharply._

"_We're not going anywhere, Father," said the younger boy, Jorgamund. "We won't let those liars hurt Mother or Hela."_

_Aurvandil bristled. "Liars?" he shot back. "As if your father is an honest man, or you in your Asgardian glamour?" Fenrir snarled at him, jumping down from his tree and landing in a crouch. Jorgamund slipped down from one branch to another to stand by his brother. Loki turned, glaring at his sons and pointing back down the path, trying to send them away, but they just glowered at the Asgardians. Odin looked saddened._

"_What else have you concealed, Loki?" he said, holding up a hand to stay the soldiers that had raised their weapons. Loki noticed the swords and spears levelled at his sons, and his own glare hardened._

"_I feared exactly this!" he hissed. "Clearly, I was right to!"_

"_This need not come to fighting," Odin said. "Bring your family back to Asgard, Loki."_

"_This need not come to fighting, he says," Jorgamund said mockingly. "The man who comes with soldiers!"_

"_We'll not go willingly as prisoners of Asgardian scum," Fenrir said, actually spitting at Odin's feet._

"_Watch yourself, child!" Sif said threateningly, hands on her swords._

"_Watch your step, _woman_," Fenrir snarled back._

"_You ought not to speak to her or your grandfather as such!" Thor said, riled. The boys were his nephews, but their red Jotun eyes were making his blood boil._

"_Both of you, be silent and go back," Loki ordered sharply. He focused his glare on Fenrir, staring the boy down. Fenrir backed down sulkily, and his younger brother followed suit. The boys started to turn away. As they did, Aurvandil and the guards stepped forwards._

"_Liars and thieves!" Fenrir snarled, bolting under his father's arm. As he moved to attack, he _changed.

_A huge wolf leapt upon Odin._

_Aurvandil immediately stepped in the way, thrusting his sword between Fenrir's jaws to catch them and prevent him from biting. Several guards rushed forwards to assist._

"_Restrain him, do not kill unless you must!" Odin ordered sharply._

"_Fenrir!" Loki yelled, running over to his son as he thrashed his head from side to side, his sharp teeth still managing to rip into attacking soldiers even though he could not bite. "JORGAMUND, _NO!_"_

_Some of the soldiers had circled behind Fenrir. With an enraged hiss, Jorgamund leapt to his brother's defence. He became not a wolf but a huge golden serpent, and his fangs tore men in half as his tail smashed Aurvandil into a tree._

"_Stop!" Thor called, flinging Mjolnir. It caught Jorgamund across the head, whipping his great head back and nearly bowling over Loki as he rushed towards his sons, whether to aid them or restrain them it was unclear. Odin flung Gungnir, and the great spear's aim was as true as ever, pinning the thrashing snake through the neck and tail- not fatal, but enough to stop the violent thrashing that had already crushed the life out of men. _

_Fenrir managed to dislodge Aurvandil's sword from his jaws and leapt upon the unarmed Odin. Sif got in the way, smacking Fenrir with her sword, not hard enough to break his hide but enough to make his head snap aside; Thor whacked it the other way with Mjolnir, knocking the wolf unconscious. Loki ran to his side, feeling for Fenrir's life and muttering spells over him, trying to change him back._

"_No!" a voice bellowed. Angrboda was running down the path towards them. She had dropped her glamour entirely and charged them with blue skin, flashing red eyes and icy spears flung from her hands. Sif was closest and charged to meet her, clicking her swords together at the hilts to create a double-ended longsword. Angrboda formed a sword of her own, but she was a sorceress, not one of the most skilled warriors in all of Asgard. Sif easily dodged the wild swing at her neck and swung her own sword up, piercing Angrboda's throat._

"_Boda!" Loki howled, losing all reason and flinging a pair of knives at Sif. She screamed as the magic blades penetrated her armour and dug into her back and shoulder._

"_LOKI!" Thor yelled furiously, punching his brother out and running to Sif's side. The daggers dissolved when extracted. Aurvandil retrieved his sword and held Loki at its point and looked to Odin, who shook his head. Aurvandil stepped back. Loki, tight-lipped, staggered up and began to mutter magic over Fenrir once more, but to no avail. He did not wake, nor did he return to being a boy._

"_The brutality of their blood overtook them, and they called on magic they could not control," Odin said softly. "They will not return to being boys, Loki. I am sorry."_

"_Then they are monsters, and must be killed!" Aurvandil declared. Odin shook his head._

"_They are Jotun, and they have killed many good men this day!" Sif said angrily, gesturing to the many dead and wounded soldiers with her good arm._

"_Then enough blood has been spilled, and there is need for no more," Odin said sadly, looking at the slain Angrboda._

"_Father," Thor asked, looking from Fenrir to Jorgamund, "what will become of them?"_

"_They must receive punishment for their crimes," Odin said, looking up to the sky, where Valkyrie chariots were visible, flying away with their precious loads. "They will only continue to grow in size and brutality in these forms…" He looked down at Loki, who was shaking in shock, grief and fury as he looked from his dead wife to his monster sons. Tears were running down his face._

"_This wasn't supposed to…" he whispered, looking up at Odin. "Please believe me, Father, it wasn't supposed to turn out like this… I never wanted…"_

"_I am sure your intent was not ill," Odin said heavily. "Your sons will not be killed, but they must be sealed. I will attend to that. You must take your daughter to the only place where she will not be in pain."_

_Hela seemed incapable of sitting up- how far up her legs did the rot spread?- but she had pushed herself up on her arms, as if trying to seem prepared in some small way. The effort of holding herself up was making her thin arms shake, and she was biting her lip to keep from moaning in pain._

"_Where is Mother?" she asked Loki, looking in confusion at Sif and Odin and suspicion at Thor as they entered her room. "Who are they? Where is everyone, Father?"_

"_I am going to take you somewhere to feel better," Loki said, a little shakily, placing a hand over his daughter's eyes. "Sleep. It will all be okay when you wake up."_

_Hela drifted asleep, not to see her mother's corpse nor her monster brothers. As soon as her eyes were closed, Loki's calm slipped again, and he looked pleadingly at his father._

"_Come along, Loki," Odin said, quietly but firmly. "We must go." Loki nodded, looking down, and gathered his sleeping daughter into his arms. Sif recoiled as Hela's skeletal feet dangled out from the hem of her skirt. Odin was impassive, and Thor could only guess at what his father was thinking._

_Looking at Sif's injuries, Thor wasn't sure what outcome he wanted for Loki, but he was sure that would never have chosen this._

{}

"That's…" Jane struggles for words, pressing her hand over her mouth as she tries to make sense of the terrible way that things had descended.

"At the time, I thought it was good that the boys' monstrosity was discovered early," Thor says morosely, "as if it were an inevitable thing… but thinking back, I see that they were made monsters. We always assumed that Angrboda's Jotun blood had tainted them, but…" He shakes his head. "Loki was born a Jotun, but I do not believe that he was born evil. A monster was something that he was not born, but something that he became, slowly, and I… I should have seen it. I did not."

"He hid it," Jane reminds him. "He's remembered here as the God of Lies for a reason, though." She hesitates. "Hela… now that I think of it, Hela is remembered in myths here, too… was she killed?"

"No…" Thor says uncomfortably. "Father had a solution."

{}

"_Hela is not the first child to ever have been born thus," Odin said, leading his sons and granddaughter to a locked room far beneath the Palace. "They are not fated to live in this realm. Your destiny, Hela, is as guide and arbiter."_

_The huge doors unlocked and opened at the King's touch. He gestured Loki to step inside, Hela in his arms._

_In the centre of the floor was a staircase, going down. Three steps down, the stairs were engulfed in darkness._

"_Set her down on the steps, Loki," Odin commanded, "but do not step there yourself."_

"_What is this, Father?" Loki asked, not making a move towards the stairs. Hela was staring curiously into the darkness._

"_It is where Hela belongs, Loki," Odin said softly. "Do not let her continue to suffer. Set her down."_

"_It's calling to me," Hela whispered, pointing down the stairs. It was then that Loki stepped forwards, kneeling by the steps to set his daughter down. He kept his hands on her shoulders to hold her up as she sat on the steps, at first wincing in pain._

_Tendrils of black crept up the steps and wrapped around Hela's bony feet. She gasped in surprise._

"_What is this?" Loki said sharply, looking from his father to his daughter. "Hela!"_

"_It's alright, Father," Hela said. All of the pain had been smoothed out of her voice, which was now rich and deep. She stood up straight and looked around her in wonder, free of pain for the first time in her existence. "I feel much better now!" She looked down into the darkness suddenly, smiling brightly. "Mother!"_

_She ran down the stairs and was gone._

"_It is for the best, Loki," Odin said, putting his hand on his son's shoulder. "I do wish that you had been open with us from the beginning, so that it had not come to this."_

"_So do I, Father," Loki said, staring at the darkness into which his daughter had vanished._

"_I will not make you witness the fates of your sons," Odin said, pointing Loki to the door. "Your mother would have words with you. Go."_

"_Loki, I am sorry," Thor said as Loki walked towards him. Loki nodded slightly, but did not look at his brother as he brushed past him on his way out._

{}

"I have to say, it's a little bit hypocritical of your Father to lecture Loki about honesty when he was hiding that Loki was a Jotun himself," Jane says with a frown. Thor smiles sadly.

"Perhaps he was hoping that Loki would be stronger than he," Thor says, somewhat charitably in Jane's opinion. "Loki was given no formal punishment for the affair, though it broke some of the older laws. Unlike now, this was not contested- I think it was acknowledged that his wife's death and the loss of his children was punishment enough, and the stigma that followed him on account of it for a long time thereafter. Some, thinking themselves kind, assured Loki that it was not his fault, that the sorceress had deceived him and that her Jotun blood was what had turned the children to monsters. It was passed around as common proof that Jotuns were incurable beasts, impossible to civilize or ever be allies with."

"I bet that made it _so_ much easier for your brother when he found out he was a Jotun," Jane says sarcastically.

"I do not doubt that it only made his feelings more confused," Thor agrees, "and in turn it has confused his feelings towards Vale. I feel that he must blame himself for Vale's transformation and Narfe's death, thinking that it is his blood that is the taint."

"But Vale's different from Fenrir and Jorgamund, isn't he?" Jane says. "I remember reading that Fenrir was sealed away and Jorgamund was cast out. That won't happen to Vale, will it?"

"At the moment, he has been deemed guilty of no crime," Thor reassures her. "Others were responsible for Narfe's death- and they _have_ been punished rightly, I assure you- and the deaths of those terrorists was clearly an act of self-defence. Fenrir and Jorgamund were different; Whether or not their mother's blood was damaging to them is debateable, but her bitterness towards Asgard certainly sank into them deep, and it festered as such things do inside of boys to warp them, make them angry. Magic is not a field that I am talented in nor familiar with, but I understand that the user's emotional state can have a powerful impact on their control. Fenrir and Jorgamund gave in to hatred and anger, which sealed their transformations. Fenrir remains sealed, but Jorgamund grew too fast and was too difficult to seal; it is hard to grip a snake firmly. He was cast out, far beyond Yggdrasil, into an empty corner of space. He will only find his way back with a calm heart. I wonder if that is ever possible."

"So what did happen to Loki?" Jane asks. "Even if he wasn't punished, that must have been a hard time for him…"

"He came to Midgard for a while, living among humans in various disguises," Thor remembers. "There are several places of great magic in this realm that have yet to be tapped, and he travelled and studied them. He kept his head down during the most intense heat of the scandal, and emerged once it had blown over as the most powerful sorcerer in Asgard." Thor sighs. "He claimed that he did not blame me for how it ended, that he knew that I had meant no ill, but how could he not attach any blame to me? It was mere months after he told me about his affair with Angrboda that it ended so violently. I tried to treat him the same as ever, as one of my most trusted companions, but I do not think that I was one of his any longer. I do not think that there was anyone that he trusted completely after that, save perhaps Sigyn. Many did not trust him. Hogan came to Asgard first around that time, when the gossip and scandal surrounding Loki were at their worst, and as a result he has always been suspicious of Loki. Sif and Loki have been on ill terms ever since, as well."

"Sif did kill his wife," Jane reasons. "She was defending herself, but I suppose Loki didn't see it that way."

"Neither did I, for a time," Thor confesses. "I was, perhaps, too keen to make it up to Loki, to remain on his side. I was sure that a warrior as skilled as Sif could have incapacitated Angrboda without killing her. Sif accused me of hoping that my brother's wife would survive rather than my own. Needless to say, perhaps, that was the point at which we began to drift apart. She was angry at me for lying, we disagreed over Angrboda's death, the fates of Loki's children, Loki's trustworthiness… in the end, she accused me of caring more about my brother than my wife. She was not wrong, and that gave me no right to call her my wife." He rubbed his chin with his hand. "Jane, you know that I love you, and that this situation with Vale has not diminished that…"

"You don't need to start that again," Jane interrupts. "Can we not compare you and me to you and Sif? It's… kind of uncomfortable."

"I apologize," Thor says, kissing her hand. "I cannot help it. Sif is the only previous relationship I have had which was serious."

"Do we count as serious by Asgardian standards?" Jane asks heavily. "Thor… you said you and Sif were together for _centuries_. I won't even live _one_, and I'm already a quarter of the way through that. There's nothing I'd rather do than spend the rest of it with you, Thor… except maybe invent interstellar travel for Earth and wormhole generators…" they grin at each other, but Jane's fades quickly. "I guess I'm just realizing that I'm only ever going to have the barest impact on your life. I'm just realizing how much you've done, how much has happened to you…"

"How could you ever think that?" Thor asks, genuinely shocked. "Jane, if you died tomorrow, I would never forget you… though leaving for Alaska will hopefully decrease the chances of that greatly. You vastly underestimate your significance to my life, Jane. Loki and all his children cannot change the fact that you matter to me, and I do not want to see you hurt." He kisses her on the cheek. "Is it not nearly time for your flight?"

"…You're right," Jane says, getting up. The sun is starting to rise through the window behind them, illuminating a golden halo behind Thor's head, making him more godly than ever. Jane doesn't want to leave him, but she's got work to do and so has he. She leans down to kiss him goodbye. "Loki doesn't deserve a brother like you."

"_No_," Thor thinks morosely, getting up to go walk her out. "_He probably didn't…_"

_I think the thing that fascinates me most about Loki is his fall. It's utterly heartbreaking, and you can kind of see good intentions buried under all of the twisted feelings and how they utterly ignited. I wanted to tell a bit of backstory that puts both Thor and Loki in places where they make bad decisions without bad intentions, to chart some of Loki's fall. Plus, Fenrir, Jorgamund and Hela are all kind of significant :P The myths don't ever make any mention of Fenrir and Jorgamund being anything but a wolf and a snake, as I recall, but I decided to make them transform to give it a greater parallel to Vale's situation. The fact that Vale can change back is a combination of differing emotional state and the fact that he's half-Nymph. _

_Fenrir ended up being bound, at the cost of Tyr's hand. His bonds are meant to last "as long as the sun and moon remain in the sky". His two sons, Skoll and Hati, are out to do something about that. At Ragnarok, they will devour the sun and the moon, Fenrir will break free and devour Odin._

_Jorgamund was cast out into the sea, where he grew large enough to encircle all of Midgard. Come Ragnarok, Thor will kill him, but will be fatally poisoned and will die after taking nine steps._

_Hela was given the role of the Queen of the realm of the dead, which subsequently came to be known as Helheim. She judges all those who are not killed valiantly in battle, and is quite fair and impartial; those who deserve suffering are given sentences in a black fortress in Niflheim, land of eternal cold, where they have to wade through burning rivers of blood and the only thing to drink is the urine of the herd of foul-tempered black goats that roam the fortress. On the other hand, she is said to be very kind to and even a lover to the noble souls who deserve their rest. _

_For the purposes of this 'verse, Fenrir is sealed in a vault in Asgard, Jorgamund is somewhere in the depths of space and Hela was left in the dead realm as a guide, but thanks to the magic she inherited from her parents rose quickly to be its queen. So with that, I've got in all of Loki's named children except for Eisa and Einmyria, who I'm leaving out because I cannot recall or find anything about them ever being important to anything ever. If somebody knows better, please let me know so I can write in more angsty backstory :D_


	7. Torment

_**Title: **__Vale: Torment_

_**Words: **__3131_

_**Main Character(s): **__Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Peter Parker, Thor Odinsson, Loki Laufeysson, Vale Lokisson, Steve Rogers_

_**Notes: **__Not much to say about this chapter… really, I don't feel like it says too much, aside from getting everyone up to speed with each other. Also, if I haven't mentioned it before, I always envision Sigyn as a water nymph because if you say "nymph" to me I'll think of a water nymph. So Vale is half water nymph. No ownie anything._

Since they frequently end up in the lab well into the night, Tony and Bruce generally eat breakfast in Bruce's apartment, so that Bruce will be there when Shanta wakes up and comes through for her own breakfast. Peter's frequently there too, since interning with Bruce isn't just a front to keep him in contact with the rest of the Avengers. Pepper's long since used to this, and she and Aunt May are generally there as well. Pepper's been feeling unwell, so Bruce is recommending a stomach-calming tea when Thor walks out of the lift to join them. He doesn't normally; he usually either eats breakfast with Jane or with Loki, in a vain attempt to get his brother to eat something. Jotuns are even hardier than Asgardians and his refusal to eat or sleep doesn't seem to be doing him any damage, but Thor worries that even Jotuns can starve to death after a few years. The lack of sleep may be taking a toll on his sanity, but as he didn't have a lot left when he came to Stark Tower, it's hard to tell.

"Jane and Darcy's flight will be taking off about now, won't it?" Pepper says, checking her watch. Thor nods, leaning against a counter with his arms crossed. He doesn't seem to want to eat, which is the first flag that something's wrong.

"Did you get to talk to Loki?" Bruce asks. Thor nods. "Did you find out about his injury?"

"I could not discern where or from whom Loki received his injuries," Thor says morosely, "but I can telly out that the reason that they seem discoloured to you is that the damage is showing through his glamour. Jotun skin is blue."

"Injuries? Multiple?" Bruce asks with a frown, getting up and going over to a screen set in the wall nearby. "Mind if I access the security tape?"

"Not at all," Thor says. "I suspect he will be unwilling to show his injuries again. It may be the only way for you to assess them, though he is still unlikely to accept treatment. It may not even be possible, if the injuries are incapable of being glamoured."

"I'll have a look anyway," Bruce says, skimming through some security footage until Thor walks into the frame. Tony wanders over to watch the cryptic argument. Bruce pauses when Loki removes his shirt, magnifying the camera on Loki to see the scars criss-crossing his torso. Tony suddenly recoils sharply, hand over his mouth.

"Oh, shit," he murmurs. "Oh, _shit_…"

"Tony?" Pepper says, shooting to her feet and running over to him. The hand that isn't over his mouth is suddenly clutching at his chest. Pepper leads him to sit down, rubbing at his chest with him, while Bruce peers closely at him.

"Tony?" he says levelly. "Tony, what's wrong? Calm down, Tony, you're hyperventilating. Look at me, Tony, and breathe…" he keeps talking in a calm, instructive vein for a couple of minutes until Tony calms down.

"Is he alright?" Peter asks nervously.

"What on earth is the matter?" his aunt asks, looking concerned.

"Sorry," Tony mutters. "Just freaked out for a moment there."

"At Loki's injuries?" Thor asks quickly. "They look similar to burn scars… do you know where he could have obtained them? He will not reveal their origin to me…"

"I dunno," Tony says, shaking his head. "It's just… Yinsen had some scars that looked a helluva lot like that. Just, y'know, not blue."

"Oh, Tony," Pepper sighs, squeezing his shoulders. Tony leans into her a little. Thor looks at Bruce to see if the name "Yinsen" rings a bell with him. Bruce is frowning, but Thor cannot tell if it is out of recognition or concern for Tony. Bruce Banner is a hard man to read.

"Who's Yinsen?" Peter asks, looking from Tony to Pepper. "What's wrong?"

"Yinsen was the guy that gave me this, sorta," Tony says, tapping the glowing circle of his Ark Reactor. "He was a doctor, and another prisoner of the same terrorists that were holding me. He helped me build the first suit. He changed my life. He…" he looks down. There's a peculiar pain on his face. "He died thinking I could change the world." He sniffs slightly, and then looks up before anyone can say anything. "They had him a lot longer than they had me. They had him doing medical work for any of them that were hurt. Had to torture him into it, sometimes. That was how he got scars like those. Those are burns that are made on purpose, not by accident."

"It's true," Bruce agrees. "I've treated wounds like that, while I was wandering. The burn gets inflicted repeatedly on the same spot until the flesh is utterly dead. That's how you get that horrible scarring. Loki didn't get those from drifting too close to a sun."

"Oh, my," May gasps. "Could those horrible aliens have done it?"

"The Chitauri?" Bruce asks, looking at Thor. "Is it likely?"

"I cannot say… the Chitauri are not well known to us," Thor says with a frown. "We still know all but nothing about Loki's time between falling from the Bifrost and appearing on this world. He said something about "the edge of space" when I asked him, but I cannot say what he means by that…"

"The edge of space?" Tony offers. "It's a hella long way away and ever-moving, but some theories suggest that there _is_ an edge to space. Some of Doctor Selvig's notes suggested that the Tessarect could open wormholes that spanned to opposite ends of the Universe, and Loki came out of the Tessarect…"

"What about whoever gave Loki the staff, and the teleportation device?" Peter asks. "You were saying that the design and power source are too different from the Chitauri tech. There could be another group of aliens involved. They could have done it…"

"We need to know if there's a group other than the Chitauri breaching Earth," Tony says with a frown. "We need to locate the other end of that teleport signal."

"Well, you and Peter know what to do," Bruce decides, patting Tony on the shoulder as he walks off. "I'd better go wake Shanta up. I need to take her school shopping today."

"Yeah, term starts next week, doesn't it?" Peter says thoughtfully. "Geez, I can't believe it… I've got better things to do right now than senior year…"

"You are _not_ dropping out of high school, even if it is to be a superhero!" May chastises him. "Have you bought your school supplies?"

"Ummm…" Peter scratches the back of his neck nervously. "It's just a couple of books that I need…"

"Give me the titles and we'll pick them up while we're out," Bruce says. "It's a pretty big shop we're doing, a couple of books won't be a problem." He walks off to Shanta's room to wake her up.

"Bruce is getting Shanta into the dorms temporarily," Tony says, watching him go. "Something's started, and he feels like she'll be safer away from Stark Tower."

"Away from Vale?" Thor asks sharply.

"And your dangerously insane brother who still has some powers, yes," Pepper says with a shudder. Thor looks down.

"Jane told me," he sighs. "I apologize. I did not realize that Loki would be able to recover any of his magic after Father took it from him… then again, his powers are very different from mine."

"Yeah, well, long story short, it makes him slightly dangerous to be in the same building as," Tony says, getting up. "Not that Loki's done anything since the attack, but Bruce is still probably gonna breathe easier when Shanta's safe away, and things tend to go better for everyone when Bruce is relaxed. Anyways, Pete, if you don't have your shopping to do, get your ass down to the lab when you're down with breakfast and we'll track that teleporter signal." He pointedly doesn't look at the computer screen as he passes it. The frozen image of a horribly scarred Loki is still on it. Pepper wipes her hand across the screen to remove the image.

"I'm in interviews for some new employees all afternoon," she says, giving him a kiss. "See you later." Tony nods, walking off, while Pepper goes back to finishing her tea. Tony gets into the lift just as Steve's getting out.

"Morning, Cap'n tightpants," he says as a greeting on his way out. Steve ignores him.

"Thor," he asks, "how's Vale? Morning, ma'am," he adds, nodding to Pepper and May.

"Quiet," Thor says morosely. "He has retreated into a shell again, as he did when Narfe died. It may be even harder to bring him out of his shell this time, for this is not something that could be said was done to him, but unarguably something that he has done."

"I came to talk to you about that," Steve says. "Keeping him confined to this floor is not going to help him stay calm, and I don't think keeping him too close to Loki is necessarily a good idea either. He might have saved lives before, but if he can stop Vale's transformation odds are that he can trigger it, too."

"I do not expect that he will do so," Thor says quietly. Steve nods.

"No offence, Thor, but you're not the best judge of character when it comes to your brother," he says. "Do we know when his mother's taking him home?"

"Sometime in the next few days, I believe," Thor says. "We will know her arrival by the rain. She is a water nymph."

"Water nymph? What's that?" Peter asks.

"A water spirit," Thor explains. "They rarely mingle with other species, so half-nymphs like Vale are rare… it gives him a strong affinity with nature. I suspect that being confined to this highly technological environment has not been calming for him, but it is better than the hostility of Asgard, at least."

"What if we gave him access to more of the tower?" Bruce asks, returning with Shanta in tow.

"Good morning, everybody!" Shanta says brightly, hopping up onto a chair and waiting patiently while Bruce pours her some tea and goes looking for her cereal.

"Good morning, Shanta," Steve says with a smile, before turning a more serious look to Bruce. "More of the Tower?"

"One of the research levels contains greenhouses," Bruce says, "and the gym level has a swimming pool in it. If the kid's half water-spirit, maybe a swim would do him some good?"

"Who is water spirit?" Shanta asks. "What is spirit?"

"Vale is half water nymph," Thor explains. "His mother is water in the form and thought of a woman."

"Ah, he say!" she says. "He say that she very beautiful, and can make magic with water. He think water pool in bathroom is too small. I tell him is bath, is not supposed to be bigger." She giggles at the silliness of extraterrestrial beings. "He say he can make flowers grow, too. He make flowers on Daddy's desk change colour! It make him smile, and he no smile much, so is good, yes?"

"It's a good thought," Steve agrees. "Thor, if you go with him and look after him…"

"I would appreciate that," Thor says with a nod. "I shall go take him now. It will relax him, no doubt. Thank you."

"He hasn't given us any trouble all month, until his life was in immediate danger," Steve says. "Keep him from drowning, and it ought to be fine."

{}

Shanta's very excited about staying in the dorms for a while, thankfully. She's slept over with her friend Maeve before, so she's familiar with them and is happy with the fact that Bruce is just a phone call away. She asks for Bruce to give Vale a phone as well, because she wants to know how he's doing as well. She's been friendly to Vale ever since he arrived, since he's the only other child living in Stark Tower. Bruce hasn't told her that Vale killed his brother, only that his brother is dead, and that's made Shanta very sympathetic to him. She's lost two younger brothers and a younger sister in her life; one of the brothers, only a baby, died when both of them were living alone on the streets and Shanta didn't know how to care for him. Even if she doesn't know Vale's full involvement in Narfe's death, she's picked up on the feelings of guilt and shame, which is probably why she's been able to connect so well to the boy. After Thor, Shanta was the first person he spoke to.

While Bruce feels that it's good for Vale to have a friend like Shanta, he worries that it's not safe for Shanta to have a friend like Vale. If Vale can't control himself, then he'll be dangerous, no matter how much he doesn't want to be. Bruce knows that well.

"We don't know when Vale's going home, anyway," he tells Shanta. "If it's after you've left, we'll say goodbye to him for you, okay?"

"I would like to come back and say goodbye to him," Shanta pouts.

"When his mother comes for him, he'll have to go," Bruce says gently. "I'm sure he can't wait to go home, anyway."

"…Is good he can be with maa," Shanta mutters. "I am happy for him so he can be with his maa. But it will be sad, right?"

"It'll be sad to say goodbye to Vale," Bruce agrees, but Shanta shakes her head.

"For Vale," she says sadly. "Going home to home with no brother. Will be sad for Vale, right?"

"He'll be with his mother," Bruce says comfortingly. "I'm sure he'll be much better with her…" He pulls over in front of a decorating shop. "Do you want some pictures to put up in your room? What about an Animal Crossing one?"

"Yeah!" Shanta says excitedly, hopping out of the car. "I hope they have Star Wars poster too!"

The distraction's worked, but Shanta's left Bruce worried. She's not wrong; it's hard to tell how Vale will handle being back home again, especially considering how many Asgardians refuse to accept him due to being Loki's son. He doesn't like the thought of the sweet, quiet boy being exposed to the same people who caused his first transformation, but he has to convince himself that it's for the best. Asgardian doctors and sorcerers can probably help him control his transformations better than Bruce could, anyway.

{}

"Do you swim often, Captain?" Thor asks as Steve walks along the side of the swimming pool. The Captain is wearing a t-shirt and sweats and looks to have come out of a workout. He shakes his head, staring at the pool.

"No, it's not really my thing," Steve says, still staring at Vale. "I just wanted to know if I was hearing right, and, uh…" He nods at Vale, who is running back and forth across the _surface_ of the pool. "First time I've heard him giggle, come to that. That's just about as strange, but in a good way."

"I should have brought him down here sooner," Thor says, smiling as he watches Vale laugh at the water splashing all around him as he plays. He spots Steve, gives an embarrassed _eep_, and sinks sharply below the surface of the water. "It suits his nature."

"I'm sorry we didn't let him down before," Steve says, watching the ripples in the water. "He's nothing like his father."

"Actually, he's not unlike Loki," Thor says. "At least, how Loki used to be. He and Narfe between them had exactly the same streak of mischief as Loki, before mischief turned to malice. Looking back, I can see how that transformation happened, and I am terrified to see that change happen to Vale, far more than I feel the wolf. I must confess, Captain, I do not want to send him back to Asgard, but it is Siygn's decision to make, not mine."

"You said she was a water spirit, right?" Steve says, nodding towards the pool. "Just wondering if he should be under that long…"

"He can breathe underwater, yes," Thor says dismissively, as if this is a perfectly normal and unremarkable thing. "He probably finds submersion to be comforting. He is truly in his element."

"That's good," Steve says with a nod. He crosses his arms, looking uncomfortable. "Can he hear us?"

"I do not believe so, no," Thor says, looking over at the unreacting water. "Why?"

"Have you gotten any more information from Loki?" Steve asks. "Has he said anything else about the Chitauri or any other alliances they may have?"

"I have not spoken to him today," Thor says, shaking his head. "Still, he speaks continuously of "the edge of space". Without the Tessarect Bifrost, it is impossible to reach that far quickly; according to Father, it is a month's ride on Sleipnir, and he is the fastest steed in all the Nine Realms."

"Your father's been out there?" Steve asks curiously. Thor nods.

"It was there that he battled the alien tyrant that forged the Tessarect," Thor says. "It took him years to travel back then, long before Sleipnir was born. It was millennia ago."

"So when did he go back on Sleipnir?" Steve asks. Thor frowns.

"I… could not say," he confesses. "Perhaps he merely estimated it. He has travelled with Sleipnir often. Nobody else can handle him. He can be tricksy… very like his mother," he laughs.

"Asgardian horses are something else, huh?" Steve says, sitting down next to Thor and cautiously watching the water. It does not still, but continues to ripple and wave even though Vale does not surface.

"Well, Sleipnir is rather extraordinary even by our standards," Thor laughs. "He is so fast because of his eight legs." Before Steve can figure out which question he wants to ask first, Thor adds, "and he is Vale's half-brother."

That gives Steve plenty more questions, but none that he really wants answers to. Shaking his head, he returns to the gym in the hope of punching out the mental images.

Vale sits in the comfortable embrace of the water. The world around him is quiet, suspended nothing. He likes the peace, and Narfe does too.

He can't hear what his uncle and the captain say, but he can hear their hidden thoughts, the things they do not say. He and Narfe have always been good not so much at mindreading but at hearing the things that are not said. They hear what people have always avoided even _thinking_ around Vale. Now they know for sure.

_He's here,_ Narfe whispers. Vale nods.

Father's here.


	8. Family

_**Title: **__Vale: Family_

_**Words: **__3127_

_**Main Character(s): **__Vale Lokisson, Narfe Lokisson, Shanta Banner, Bruce Banner, Thor Odinsson, Sigyn Vatnsdottir, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanov, Peter Parker, Jane Foster, Darcy Lewis, Pepper Potts, May Parker_

_**Notes: **__Entirely Vale POV chapter! With Vale ruminating over those most beloved Marvel topics, daddy and brother issues XP I don't know if I ever mentioned it, but I always envisioned Vale as the older twin and Narfe the younger, if that means anything. No ownie, even if Vale is starting to feel like my poor trouble baby._

Vale is curious to know what Midgard education is like and Shanta is very excited to tell him. The "science" seems to Vale awfully primitive- Doctor Banner seems to agree, from what he does not say he reads the class notes- and History and Geography are very small-scaled, concerned only with the recent millennia of Midgard and not the great and ancient history of the realms of Yggdrasil.

The languages are all different too. Vale's always been good at languages and so had Narfe. They inherited the gift of the AllTongue from Father. It isn't as if it's difficult, really. It's simply a matter of shaping your words around meaning rather than sound. What's so hard about that? Once you know how to speak meaning, hearing meaning is easier still. Other kids had accused Narfe and Vale of mind-reading when really all they'd done was hear what was meant instead of what was said. Most other kids couldn't do magic, anyway, beyond base elemental or energy powers. They didn't want to because they thought magic was silly.

Narfe and Vale had always figured that they were just stupid.

Shanta likes that he can speak the AllTongue, though, because she gets to tell him secrets in the tongue of her homeland that nobody else can understand. Vale likes her because she's very honest. What she says is always what she means.

She's curious about Narfe, too, and asks questions about him. All the grown-ups keep tip-toeing around the subject as if pretending that what happened to Narfe didn't, as if _Narfe_ didn't happen, would somehow make Vale feel better. It doesn't. How can it? There isn't a memory or thought that he's ever had that _wasn't_ shared with Narfe. He doesn't talk about Narfe as if he's still here, because nobody else can hear or feel him so they won't understand, but he likes being able to talk about Narfe when he _was_ here, among the living.

Because he _was_. He was _here_. And now he's not, and it's all Vale's fault.

That's the thing he doesn't like from Shanta, sympathy. She doesn't know the truth, so she thinks her baby brother's death is the same kind of thing when really it's not. He feels It from the grown-ups too, sympathy, _pity_. He doesn't want it because he doesn't deserve it. They must be stupid or fools to think that he does.

Well, not all of them are. Uncle Thor's wife, Lady Jane, the clever one trying to figure out the starts, she was afraid after Vale's transformation, as she should be. She left, taking Lady Darcy with her, the silly one with all of the books and movies. She was earnest at least, almost, but she tip-toed around Narfe like the rest of them.

Grown-ups never tell the truth. He and Narfe have always known that.

"Shanta?" he asks her, glancing over at Doctor Banner. He's always there when Shanta comes to play in order to protect her, and while he glances over his laptop at them regularly he doesn't seem to be playing too close attention to the conversation. Vale turns a couple of pages of a textbook so he thinks they're still talking about school. "Uncle, Lord Tony, Brother Peter and your Father- are they all of the Avengers?"

"No, there are more," she says. "There are Uncle Clint and Aunt Tasha, but they are not always here. There is Captain Steve, too."

"I don't think I've met them," Vale says with a frown. "No… I have seen them, I think. Who is the large human, with gold hair like Uncle's only short?"

"The Captain!" Shanta says. "You haven't seen him before? I thought the Avengers had all come to visit you."

"I think some have been watching me," Vale admits cautiously. "Sometimes I think I see people watching me, just barely, but they do not talk to me."

Shanta frowns. "Why would they do that?"

Vale stares at her in surprise. "Why? In case I turn into a wolf, I suppose!"

"Oh, yeah…" Shanta is not remotely as frightened as she ought to be by this. Vale glances at Doctor Banner again. He is frowning at something on his computer screen. Vale wonders if Shanta has ever seen him transform. She doesn't seem to have ever been afraid of him, but surely if she'd seen the monster she'd feel differently? She certainly would about Vale. She's a fragile mortal and Vale has always been told how easily fear comes to mortals. He's seen it in the humans' response to his wolf transformation. "It's still rude of them not to come say hello," Shanta says. "You're our guest! Not a lot of people live here, so they ought to come say hi! They threw a party at the shawerma restaurant to welcome Big Brother Peter and Aunt May, and one when Aunt Jane and Big Sister Darcy moved in. All of them came to say hello to me when Uncle Bruce brought me here, even though Captain Steve and Uncle Clint and Aunt Tasha were in other countries. And all of them go to Uncle Thor's to visit the strange man, too."

"Strange man?" Vale asks. Shanta giggles, leaning forward to whisper, though they're still speaking Hindi. Vale wonders if she's talking about who he thinks she does. He hopes she is, but he's afraid too.

"He's a secret man!" she whispers. "In a secret room down that hall!" She nods slightly towards the hall in question. It strikes Vale that he's never been down there. The whole time he's been here, he hasn't gone exploring in Uncle Thor's rooms at all. Once, he would've been off like a shot, determined to see everything- he and Narfe would have been. Narfe was always the one that came up with ideas and games, and Vale was the one that made them work without them getting into too much trouble. Without Narfe, though, Vale's felt listless, always waiting around for Uncle Thor or someone to suggest things to do on Midgard. It doesn't help that he isn't sure what kind of things there are to _do_ in this realm- he didn't know they had pools until Uncle Thor took him to one, even if it was just one indoors that wasn't very deep- but before, with Narfe, he'd have gone to _look_.

Could he really have been so close this whole time?

"If it's a secret, how do you know?" he asks curiously. Shanta giggles bashfully.

"I saw people going in, and… I went in once, too, though I'm sure I'm not supposed to. He was a very strange man. I don't think he's very well, but he made me flowers, all silver and gold…"

The description is exactly like the flowers from the high fields of Asgard. The only other place that they've ever grown is in Mother's pool, and only because…

"Vale," Bruce says. Vale and Shanta both look up quickly, adopting the carefully innocent expressions of guilty children. Doctor Banner is actually looking out of the window, where thick clouds are rolling across the sky far quicker than Midgard weather normally moves. "Looks like someone's coming through."

"Your surmise is correct, Doctor Banner," Jarvis' disembodied voice says. "A Bifrost portal has been detected. Thor has requested that you bring Vale to the top floor."

The glowing clouds open and unnatural rain pours down. Vale is excited and terrified.

"Mother," he whispers.

Shanta is excited when he says goodbye, but for the first time he can hear meaning that she does not say. She is sad that he is leaving, her only friend and playmate close to her age in the tower, but she is happy for him that he can be with his family again. He feels a similar mixture of excitement and terror.

Vale misses his mother. She still cared for Narfe and he, even when everyone else didn't like them. He wants, so badly, for her to smile at him and tell him it's all okay. He hasn't seen her since Narfe died. He awoke on Midgard with his uncle watching over him, telling him his mother was mourning Narfe.

But what if that isn't it? What if the real reason she hasn't come to see him is that she hates him for killing Narfe? What if she thinks he's evil? It terrifies him.

Asgard terrifies him too. He doesn't want to go back there. He doesn't want to be feared and hated. He knows he ought to be, and the mortals do fear him, as they ought to, but he selfishly feels that he doesn't _want_ to be hated. The mortals are kind, hiding their fear and trying to help him, if such a thing is possible. What will he do on Asgard? Live alone with his mother in the water meadows, hidden forever?

He knows he shouldn't, but he wants to stay on Midgard. He wants his mother to stay here with him, on this beautiful planet that is more than two-thirds water. Shanta told him that, showing him a picture of the blue sphere that is Midgard. He does not want to leave that sphere.

When he reaches the top floor with Doctor Banner, all of the Avengers are waiting there, including the ones that he has never met before; Captain Steve, the Asgardian-sized Avenger that he saw briefly at the pool and Clint and Tasha, the man and woman that he has only ever seen out of the corner of his eye as a presence watching him. Even Lady Pepper is here, and Lady Jane and Lady Darcy over video. They are all here to see him leave their world.

His Uncle squeezes his shoulder, smiling warmly at him. "Are you ready to go home, Vale?" he asks. Under the question, though, Vale can hear fears that are startlingly similar to his concerning the people of Asgard. He wants to say something, but is distracted by the sight of his mother forming out of the rain. The rain flows oddly, as if around a shape that is not there, and suddenly she _is_ there, walking along Tony's veranda to where Captain Steve politely opens the doors for her.

Her golden hair is unbound, almost trailing on the ground behind her, and her dress is the grey of a stormy sea. She is still dressed for mourning.

Vale is conflicted. He wants to run to her, but the fear of rejection is powerful and he can't help but shrink behind his uncle.

"Mother," he whispers.

She steps inside without trailing any water onto the wood floor. Every drop of water that touched her has been absorbed. "Vale," she calls, kneeling down and stretching her arms out to him. She smiles, and while there is sadness, her eyes light up with real happiness when she sees him safe.

Uncle gives him a push and he runs to her, hugging her tight, breathing in the soothing scent of fresh rain and enjoying the comforting warmth of her arms wrapping around him. She rocks him and hums and old lullaby. He doesn't care about all the people watching him act like a small child. He tries to push out of his mind the feeling of Narfe reaching out but unable to make any contact with Mother.

"Mother," he murmurs. "I've missed you."

"I've been so worried about you, Vale," she says, rubbing his back. "I had to see that your brother was sent off properly. It's alright now. I've come to take you home." Vale stiffens slightly.

"Mother, I… I do not want to return to Asgard," he says, stumbling over the words. He's _never_ contradicted Mother before. Even Narfe feels uncertain about such a transgression. "It scares me."

"We'll go to the Water Meadows, Vale," his mother promises, putting her hands on his shoulders and leaning back to look at him. "We'll be safe there."

"Can't you stay here with me, Mother?" Vale pleads. "You'll like this planet, I know it! There's so much water! And… these people are kind, Mother." _They don't attack us. They don't make you transform._ "Can't we stay here?"

He flinches as the smile fades from his mother's face. "I am not permitted to stay on this world, Vale," she says, throwing a sour look at Uncle. "You must come home with me now."

Vale looks at his uncle, who looks downcast, and then back at his mother. He wants to cry, because he's _so scared_ of his mother hating him, but the fear of Asgard is greater, of how much worse he may become there. If only he could be strong, like Uncle and Grandfather… "Please, Mother, can't we find a way?" he begs. "I-I can't do it, Mother. I can't go back home, not to Asgard nor to the Meadows, without Narfe… it'll be too lonely."

"I will be there with you," his mother says soothingly, stroking his hair. Vale bites his lip as Narfe echoes the sentiment. Narfe being here but not being here is just about tolerable on this strange world. Home, where Narfe _should_ be…

"I don't want to hide, Mother," he says. "These people have been kind, and some of them say they can help me…"

"Vale, be serious," says his mother sternly. "You think all of the people of this world will accept you? They are mortals, primitive, of short lifespan. There are no healers of skill, no real teachers. They are ignorant…"

"Hey, now," Tony butts in, looking disgruntled. "At least we're working on it, lady, instead of torturing kids…"

"Shut up, Tony," Steve hisses as Sigyn's eyes flash.

"…they do not show proper respect," she says coldly.

"But these ones do accept me," Vale says, too scared to look at the Avengers in case they are disagreeing. He has heard it from all of the ones that he has met, though. Even if they fear him, they do not wish harm on him. There are none of the hateful feelings he and Narfe received from so many Asgardians. The undercurrent of Tony's words is reproachful against the very society which drove Vale out. "That is more than do on Asgard, Mother… and I would like to stay here awhile longer, I-if that's alright." He finally dares to look nervously up at Narfe's prompting.

"It's not a problem, is it?" Bruce asks Tony with a shrug that Tony mirrors.

"Fury might pitch a fit about havin' to inform the Council that there's another alien here," Clint muses, though he does not seem to mean this negatively. Whatever he's talking about, it sounds amusing to him.

"And that's why I'm all for it," Tony declares.

"We're not scared to have you here, Vale," Peter says. He is oddly honest for someone who has seen Vale's wolf form, and for that Vale is grateful. The others nod in agreement.

"I swear that I will see to my nephew's safety and happiness," Thor says firmly. Sigyn regards him coldly. _She hates him_, Narfe says, and Vale agrees. He's never noticed it before, because he has never seen his mother talk to his uncle before because she rarely went with them when Father took them to the Palace to see his relatives. In fact, she never went.

"Your word means little to me," she snaps, "for I doubt your ability to keep it. Why should I leave my son with you?"

"Because it is the choice that Vale has made," Thor says firmly.

"He is a child," Sigyn says, standing up and stepping between Vale and his uncle. Even angry, her movements are smooth and flowing. Her hair constantly ripples. She never seems to be at rest.

"He is dealing with traumas that many adults cannot bear," Thor says sadly. "Allow us to regard him as more than them."

"He needs support right now, not isolation," Bruce says. "As a doctor, ma'am-"

"A Doctor!" Sigyn says scornfully. "A primitive healer on a primitive world."

"Could you stop using that word, maybe?" Tasha says, looking disgruntled. Her meaning his Vale like an arrow. _Sounds way too much like her husband. Dangerous._

"Please let me stay awhile longer, Mother," Vale says. "Please stay with me… you'll like it if you just see some of it, I promise!"

"I cannot," Sigyn says, looking down at her son, stormy-faced. "If you remain here, you will do so alone." She sighs heavily when Vale's face falls and leans down to kiss his cheek, her expression gentle again. "When you are done playing, I will be waiting for you at home." With that, the rain begins to pour outside again. She smoothes Vale's hair, throws a quick look of contempt at Thor, strides outside and is gone.

"Dibs not telling Fury," Tony says as an uncomfortable silence falls. Vale begins to cry, though he tries hard not to. The tears roll down and sink into his cheeks.

"She hates me," he whimpers, covering his eyes to hide the tears. His uncle sits on the floor next to him and wraps his arms around Vale in a strong hug.

"She does not hate you," he says. "She dislikes me greatly, and is saddened that she cannot look after you. What mother does not want to care for her hurting child?"

"Then why doesn't she stay?" Vale asks. He has ideas, but he wants to know if his uncle will admit it.

"She is not allowed to," Thor says evasively. He looks uncomfortable, as he did when he sat Vale down to try to explain to him how Narfe died. He knows that Vale ought to know what he is not saying, but fears it hurting him.

"But why?" Vale presses. If Uncle just _says_ it, perhaps things are not quite as bad as he fears…

"At the moment, the Council in charge of Earth's relationship to other planets wants to limit the number of Asgardians on Earth," Lady Tasha intervenes. "We don't know enough about you and what you can do, especially your mother, who I think might be the first water nymph to be known to set foot on Earth. Most of this planet is water, and too many of them exercising their powers could disrupt the ecosystem in ways that we can't even predict. Dealing with the effect that Bifrost is having on planetary weather patterns is enough!"

A few people laugh and talk turns to what to do about adding another child to the household, but Vale can feel it hanging in the air. The reason his mother can't stay, the reason his being here is complicated, the thing under their own roof that they fear more than him. He is certain now.

_Father is here._

_Seriously, I'm starting to wish I could draw because between the movies and the comic books all of these characters are coming across to me in a very strongly visual way that I really wish I could do as a doujin or something instead of a fanfic. If I'd been able to draw the previous chapter, I'd have liked to have drawn footprints in the water behind Vale, as if someone's running behind him, but I couldn't figure out a way to write that without feeling I was drawing excessive attention to it. In this chapter, I can't stop myself describing Sigyn using adjectives associated with water and would feel distinctly less cheesy if I were just capable of drawing her :x Well, I hoped I've managed to paint a vivid enough image in the minds of my readers, anyway :)_


	9. Secrets

_**Title:**__ Vale: Secrets_

_**Words: **__3616_

_**Notes: **__Removing the "character(s)" section since I only just remembered that this is no longer an overlong oneshot, it's a series, and you know who's in it by now :x So: Jane and Darcy are in Alaska but videocalling an Avengers conference to decide what to do about Vale. Vale, too, is trying to decide what to do with himself, and goes looking for one person who may have answers._

"Uncle, can I go tell Shanta that I'm staying?" Vale asks. "She's my friend, she should know too."

"Of course," Thor says, getting up and walking Vale over to the lift. He pauses as the doors open. "This floor," he says, pressing the button for Vale and then stepping back. "There are things I must discuss with the other Avengers. Behave for Lady Parker, you understand?"

"Yes, Uncle," Vale promises as the lift doors close between them. Thor turns and walks back to the other Avengers.

"It will not be a problem, him being here, will it?" He asks Tony seriously. "Answer me truthfully."

"Not because of the wolf, probably," Tony says, shrugging and popping open a bag of raspberries. "I mean, we should probably look into helping him figure out how to control that, but that's really less of a problem than the part where his batshit crazy dad is living on your floor, and if he's living here now you can't just keep him in his bedroom and your living room. Either we're going to have to tell him and find a way to deal, or move Loki to another floor."

"Plus, depending how long he's living here, we'll probably have to organize some kind of identity for him for official purposes," Pepper adds, pulling out her PDA and tapping away. "We do have cover documents for you, after all, and some for Sif and the others left over from when they visited and needed to move around pretending to be humans."

"Yeah, the main problem's with telling Fury and the Council that we're hoping to have another Asgardian on Earth long-term," Clint agrees. "And whether or not we tell the Council that he's Loki's son."

There's a chorus of "no"s from most of the others present. "You think he got it bad from the Asgardians, imagine how the stupid Evil Council will think of him," Tony declares, throwing a raspberry at Clint's head.

"Are they that bad?" asks Peter nervously, who's never seen the Council. Officially, neither has Tony, but his habit of hacking SHIELD archives has yielded interesting side benefits. The first time he saw Tony do that, Peter panicked, thinking they were all going to be arrested. The other Avengers had found it hilarious.

"They can be… extreme," Bruce says cautiously.

"Extreme? Did you know they were gonna _nuke_ Manhattan last year?" Tony says indignantly.

"They _did_ try to nuke Manhattan," Pepper corrects him. "Until the cleverest _idiot_ on the planet flew it through a wormhole…"

"It worked, didn't it?" Tony says innocently. Pepper gives him a Look, which Tony tries unsuccessfully to ward off with Raspberries.

"I will not allow this Council to harm my nephew," Thor says, putting his hands on the back of the sofa and leaning forwards. "Must they know he is here?"

"Director Fury needs to know, at least," Natasha says pointedly.

"_Y'know, whoever's gotta talk to Fury,_" Darcy offers, "_you could always distract him with what we've found._"

"What's that?" Steve asks. Darcy looks to Jane.

"_We've been doing some research with a small observatory north of Anadyr,_" the astrophysicist explains, glancing at something off-camera. "_They came up with some unusual star patterns about two months ago. Some kind of electromagnetic spike played haywire with their equipment, such as it is, at the same time._"

"_Oh, don't rag on their equipment,_" Darcy says with a grin. "_Like you don't MacGuyver wormhole generators out of boxes of Legos._"

"_I only used Lego once and the whole thing wasn't made out of it,_" Jane argues. Tony grins.

"Really handy for stands and pivots on the fly though, isn't it?" He says. Jane nods involuntarily before catching herself and looking embarrassed.

"Electromagnetic spikes?" Bruce presses. Jane nods again, looking grateful to change the subject.

"_One of them about the same time as the attack on Stark Tower,_" she continues. "_Unlike the others, this one wasn't accompanied by anomalous star patterns. Could be worth checking out._"

"It certainly could, considering that there's a Ten Rings black market camp northwest of Anadyr," Natasha puts in.

"Wait, really?" Tony says, sitting up sharply. Pepper even looks up from her PDA. "How the hell did you keep that quiet, and why?"

"Because you probably would have flown in and blown it up," Natasha says patiently, "as they're about to receive a huge shipment of black market weaponry. We've been watching them for a few months, hoping to catch them and their supplier at the transaction."

"Yeah, except now it sounds like instead of weapons, they're smuggling _aliens_," Peter points out.

"Which is why I'm going to go talk to Director Fury about authorizing a strike there as soon as possible," Natasha says, getting up and striding off. She gets into the lift and leaves.

"Listen, I know you guys think we snitch on everything to Fury," Clint begins, holding up his hands.

"Because you do," Tony interrupts. Pepper and Bruce give him admonishing looks.

"But the Council is another matter," Clint says, looking unruffled. "Trust me, the Director updates them on a need-to-know basis and he doesn't think they need to know much. Long as Vale don't hurt anybody on our side and don't cause any trouble, he'll keep the kid safe."

"Thank you all," Thor says gratefully. "I truly appreciate it." He looks at Jane. "Jane, have you any star charts of the anomalous star patterns?"

"_Tentative ones, they only got photographs of the last couple and not great ones at that_," Jane says as Darcy goes rummaging through some paperwork in the background. "_There's enough to make us sure that the star alignment isn't visible from anywhere on Earth…_" she and Darcy spread out a large roll of paper for the camera. There is a sketchy star chart on it with a few crossing-outs and annotations. Thor frowns as he looks it over.

"I do not believe that those stars are visible from _anywhere_ in the Nine Realms," he says, pointing at something in the top right-hand corner. "Though that galaxy… it looks familiar somehow."

"I think I've seen it somewhere too," Steve says with a frown. "In a painting or something, maybe?"

"_The only painting of it would be this one," _Jane says, holding up a black and white image. "_Sorry about the monochrome, they faxed this one over. One of the assistants in Anadyr is of an artistic bent and has tried painting parts of the sky they saw from memory. We probably can't assume that this is entirely accurate, but still, the estimated size and shape of the galaxy doesn't fit any visible from our solar system. This is only visible from a far corner of the Universe_."

"Sounds like where you said the Chitauri are from," Bruce says to Thor. Thor nods grimly.

{}

Vale's hands are shaking as he reaches for the door handle. There are many locks and securities, but pushing them aside with magic is second nature, like changing the floor that the elevator went to, like concealing himself so that even Lord Jarvis could not see him walk here. It feels as if Narfe reaches in and removes them for him, leaving him no choice but to step inside.

The room inside is dark, and in the darkness his eyes are drawn to the bright television screen. In a cold blue light sits a man, a horrible man with a face torn and bloodied, cradling a lifeless man wrapped in furs.

"_I would have loved you_," the horrible man moans, almost crying, "_with my whole heart_!" He screams, cries, beats his chest, and vanishes into blackness. Vale looks over to the remote that turned the television off, and to the man that holds it.

His eyes do not adjust well to the darkness, so he reaches up and switches on the light. What he sees is not what he had expected. He had expected- _hoped_- for his father, the man who had played at magic with Narfe and he, neat, smiling, magical.

The man he sees has long, unkempt hair, sunken eyes and sallow cheeks as if he has not eaten nor slept for far, far too long. Perhaps he hasn't. There is a bed in the room but it is untouched; there is a platter of dinner, soup and vegetables, but it too is untouched and Vale can tell that it has long grown cold. The sunken eyes are dark and regard Vale with nothing more than a hint of confusion.

"Father," he says quietly. Loki looks away.

"Ought you to be here, Vale?" he says, walking over to the curtained window. There are two chairs, and between them a table with a number of books stacked on it. He sits in one of the chairs but makes no move to open the curtain.

"Probably not," Vale says, "but Narfe and I went lots of places we weren't supposed to. We saw things, and heard things, that we weren't supposed to. It was fun. Narfe loved it. He d- he wouldn't want me to stop doing it."

"And what things did you see and hear?" Loki says. "What do the adults try to keep from you, Vale?"

"That you're here," Vale says, shuffling his feet. "Things you did. Bad things."

"You heard of those bad things, and yet here you are," Loki says softly. Vale nods. "Foolish boy."

"Mother thinks so, too," Vale says, biting his lip. "But she doesn't hate me, at least. I don't think so… I hope she doesn't."

"Sigyn is kind at heart," Loki says softly. "She focuses often one what one could be rather than what one is." His speech is almost impossible to discern meaning of, because there is little meaning or intent behind his words; he is speaking without thought. But there is still feeling there, a slight warmth, resented warmth but there all the same. It makes Vale confident enough to approach his father.

Loki does not respond when Vale sits on the chair opposite him. Vale fidgets, unsure of what to say. He does not know this man sitting in front of him. Loki is too changed, and Vale was so young when last he saw him that he doesn't really know who he was back then.

"Why are you here, Vale?" Loki says eventually. Vale takes this as an invitation to ask his question.

"Why am I a monster?" He asks.

Several different emotions flicker across Loki's face and thoughts, like brief images rippling across a pond. He works his jaw a moment, as if chewing back words. "Why ask me that question?" he finally says.

"Because you're my father," Vale says. "I thought you might know."

"Because I am a monster," Loki adds. "Because I am a monster, you think you are one too."

"No…" Vale sniffs, wanting to cry as he thinks about what he's about to say. "Because I have done monstrous things," he says. "I killed many men. They were bad men, but I tore them apart. And Narfe, too. Narfe was not bad, but still I killed him."

"Was Narfe a monster?" Loki asks.

"No!" Vale says quickly, automatically. "My brother was not a monster!"

"Why are you a monster and your twin not?" Loki asks. He has shifted the curtain slightly, and is looking outside. "What is the difference? And if there is a difference, then what does your question have to do with me?"

"I… turned into a beast," Vale says, struggling with the questions. "Narfe never did. And I did it again. I knew how, and I knew that if I did it, those men would die. But I thought that if I didn't, good people would die. I don't know…"

"So you wanted to kill those men?" Loki asks. "Did you want to kill Narfe?"

"No!" Vale says. "I didn't want anyone to die…"

"I did," Loki says softly. "I want Thor to die, and begone. I wanted all of Jotunheim to die. I wanted many humans here to die. I wanted death, and pain. That is why I am a monster beyond salvation, Vale, a creature that you ought not to share a room with."

"Not because you're… a Jotun?" Vale asks, half-hopeful. It makes him flinch to hear such dark words from the man before him, such open admittance of evil.

"Do not speak of that," Loki says sharply. "What do you expect to hear? That I am different from the monsters in the night, the creatures that mothers use to frighten children? _Everyone knows_, after all, that Jotuns are monsters and sorcerers are not to be trusted, and no doubt I have only proven that. And, as is natural, such tainted blood has only turned _you_ into a monster too, and no doubt would have done so for Narfe had he not died so young!"

"Is that… no!" Vale insisted, shaking his head. "Narfe… He forgave me, Father. I-I can still hear him. We could always… before, we could hear each other without speaking. I still can, even though he's dead, and he forgave me-"

"No," Loki said, looking on Vale with something that may have been pity. "He did not."

"But I heard him!" Vale insists. "You _know_ how we could hear each other when we were little, and we still-"

To his surprise, his father reaches out and his fingers brush Vale's forehead. Loki's expression only grows darker as he pulls away again. "Yes, you and Narfe have always had some psychic talents," he says. "As such, you have created a delusion of Narfe that fools even yourself. Queen Hela does not allow her subjects to slip her realm so frivolously. All you have heard is your own desperate need to be absolved, a fantasy that allows you to avoid the pain of punishment or struggle of redemption."

"N-no… that's not it, it can't be!" Vale says desperately, trying to reach out in his mind to where Narfe was before. He _knows_ he heard something…

But suddenly, he feels emptiness. Where Narfe has always been, since before they were born, there is the huge, crushing weight of _nothing_. His brother is gone, like a mirage that vanished the moment he reached out to touch it.

"Be glad he is truly gone," Loki says, looking away. "Is that not better than him seeing what you are?"

Vale wants to cry. Why did he hear that, feel that very clear sense of forgiveness, if Narfe can no longer speak to him?

"He wouldn't be… If I had died, and not Narfe," he whispers, "I would not blame him. I could not hate him. He's my little brother…"

Loki's eyes flicker to Vale briefly. "Hate? No, not so soon. Hate is something foul that must fester long. Disappointment is far swifter and more bitter."

Vale flinches. The door to Loki's room bangs open.

"Vale!" Thor says sharply, looking warily from the tears on Vale's face to Loki's averted eyes. "Vale, what are you doing here?"

"I'm sorry, Uncle," Vale says, slipping out of his seat and shuffling nervously away from his father. The second he heard Thor's voice, Loki's expression shifted into something twisted and cold. The transformation is frightening. "I know I shouldn't have come…"

"Do not apologize," Thor says, reaching out to him. "But I think it is time you left. I must have words with my brother."

Vale looks back at his father. Loki is still refusing to look at him or Thor. He appears to be glaring at the curtains in utter hate. Vale suddenly can't leave the room fast enough.

From the hall, he car hear his uncle's voice, loud and agitated. He sits down against the wall and cries with nobody to hear him, least of all Narfe.

Who can he talk to? There is nobody that he can trust like Narfe. The two of them had never trusted or needed anybody else. Why would they? Grown-ups never tell the truth, and the other children were stupid.

Father had understood them, the father he remembers from the past. Mother loved them, but her magic was different from theirs tied too closely to her pool, whereas Father always seemed to know what they could do or how it worked. Father knew _everything_. But then he was gone, and suddenly grown-ups were saying aloud all of the things they'd only ever thought before. Vale had never quite believed any of it until this moment.

His brother is gone, and the father he remembers is as good as dead, and Vale has never felt so very alone in all of his life. The fear and sorrow and loneliness are overwhelming, and it makes him long to turn into the wolf again. Wolves don't have such complicated feelings. Wolf feelings are clear and simple and easy to deal with…

{}

"How very like your father," Loki says, watching Vale leave. "Prefer telling him a pretty lie rather than the ugly truth, do you?"

"I find it difficult to bring the boy more pain when he is already suffering, Loki," Thor says sharply. He does not sit where Vale was but stands over his brother, arms crossed. "How can you speak so coldly to your own son?"

"The truth these days is nothing but a knife," Loki says with a shrug, "and it must cut. Hide it and it will rust, and the cut hurts all the more. A rusted knife will infect the wound. Can you not see sitting before you, the ravages of the infected wound? Is that what you wish for Vale? How cruel your kindness is, and so it logically follows that the only kindness is cruelty."

"This is what I feared most," Thor says tiredly. "Your madness causes you to lash out even at your son. Do you not realize that your criticism will hurt him more than any other?"

"Fear is a paralytic, curiosity an intoxicant," Loki says scornfully. "But wait, you confuse me- are you hoping for Vale to be able to spend time with a man who has oft attempted genocide and murder and is, as you so recently pointed out, painfully insane? It may be a blessing you have no children of your own, as clearly you are a terribly irresponsible guardian."

"So says the man who abandoned his wife and sons to widespread scorn in his own mistaken quest for that which he already had!" Thor shouts, slamming his hands into the table. "You push everything away from you, Loki, out of your own selfish obsession with a pain that you refuse to let be healed! Can you not try for redemption for your son's sake, if not your own?"

"Do not speak of things you do not understand!" Loki snarls. "What do you know of redemption, you for whom all is always forgiven, whose deeds are great because they are done by him? You who have never truly sinned, have never stared into darkness of your own making? Are you truly so naïve to think that all can be redeemed? Where there cannot be redemption, there must be punishment, so that there is balance. For that which cannot be redeemed, cannot be forgiven!" He suddenly laughs, shaking his head. "Listen to how I ramble of things that _you_ could never understand…"

"I would understand all if you simply spoke plainly, brother, instead of playing your games," Thor says tiredly. "I am losing patience with them. There is too much suffering involved for things to be taken so lightly, too much that Vale may still suffer. Is that what you want, brother?"

"Do stop calling me that, Thunderer," Loki says coldly, looking away. "Do not waste your misplaced sense of family on me. You know that we were never brothers."

Thor growls in frustration. "I know that once we were brothers," he says, storming away. "_You_ decided that we are no longer. You decide the most terrible things and give others no chance to explain. The reason that you never hear the truth, _brother_, is that you close your ears to it. There are many things you may lay blame with me for, but that is not one of them."

Leaving Loki's room is now, out of habit, a moment of reflection for him, a moment to stop and calm himself so that he does not break the door or wall to Loki's room in rage. It never ceases to cause bile and rage to rise in him, this seemingly endless battle against the wall of anger and bitterness that keeps his brother from him.

That rage had only layered on top of the fear and anger at discovering that Vale had sneaked into Loki's room. Tony has put extra forms of every security known to Midgard on the room, and Thor has even placed a shielding seal on the door that has been enchanted by Odin himself, yet Vale slipped all of that with ease. He is already a sorcerer of great natural power, as Loki was, and Thor is forcibly reminded that his actions were those of a confused child rather than a potential danger when he sees the boy sitting on the hall floor, staring blankly at the opposite wall with tears drying on his cheeks.

"Vale," he says, crouching down next to him, "I am sorry that I did not tell you he is here, but-"

"Uncle, may I see Doctor Banner?" Vale asks. His voice is a little thick from crying, but he is firm.

"Doctor Banner?" Thor asks in surprise. Vale nods.

"If I am still to transform into this beast," he says, "then I must learn to control it, must I not?"

{}

{}

_The movie that Loki is watching isn't actually a movie, by the way, but the recording of the National Theatre's production of _Frankenstein_ that was streamed to cinemas across the UK last year. Recently, a cinema near me showed the recordings again, and I got to see one of the _Frankenstein_ performances, as there were actually two different ones. In one, Benedict Cumberbatch played Frankenstein and Johnny Lee Miller played the Creature, while in the other they swapped roles. I saw the latter, and it was _phenomenal_. The lighting was particularly creative, with a million lightbulbs hanging over the stage allows tons of different lighting effects, including the lighting of individual bulbs simulating a night sky :D Anyway… the play almost entirely follows the Creature, who has a number of dialogues and monologues where he questions what he is and why he was born as he was. At one point he flies into a rage and repeatedly screams "WHY? WHY? WHY AM I A _MONSTER?"_ I'd started writing this just before I saw the performance, so those scenes brought Loki and Vale' struggles with themselves to mind very clearly. _

_Anyway, the scene Loki is watching is right at the end, where Frankenstein nearly dies in the Arctic Circle. The Creature hugs Frankenstein and cries and apologizes for hating him so much, telling him that if only Frankenstein had showed him love, the Creature would have loved him back, and if the Creature had felt loved he might have loved the world instead of hating it. Again, a scene that I felt resonated strongly with Loki's desperate search for love. So I knew that, since I'd put a TV and books in Loki's room, I had to make him watch it XD_


	10. Control

_**Title: **__Vale: Control_

_**Words: **__3016_

_**Notes: **__Vale tries transforming again, and the mad scientists three try to figure it out with their science. _

Clint, Tony and Steve are all standing in the control room with Thor, Peter, Vale and Shanta. When Vale went to tell Shanta that he was not going home after all, he let slip that he was going to go downstairs with Banner and Shanta immediately asked if it was to "The Smash Room". About eight months ago, Shanta followed Bruce when he and Tony went down for some "Smash Therapy", and had thoroughly enjoyed watching Iron Man buzz the Hulk so the big guy could let off some steam. Since the room has proven thoroughly resistant to everything the Hulk can do to it, and Shanta seems completely incapable of seeing "Green Daddy" as any danger (Bruce had to very quickly as Shanta not to refer to the Hulk as "Big Daddy" after Tony started sniggering), she's been allowed to come watch. She is adamant about getting to see Vale transform.

Vale, on the other hand, is the only one in the room to have never witnessed a Hulk transformation, so when Bruce goes down to the room, carefully removes his shirt and glasses and Hulks out, he recoils in shock. The kind doctor suddenly becomes a hulking giant, his skin turned green and his features monstrous. Shanta pats him on the arm. She is relaxed and calm.

"It is okay," she reassures him. "Green Daddy will hurt nobody, and he will return to being Little Daddy soon."

"Vale," the green monster grunts, looking up at the camera. "Look. Used to be angry. Smash everything. Hate everything. Kill some. No control. Calm now." He reaches down and picks up his glasses delicately between two giant fingers. "See? Control."

"Trust me, he did not used to have that much control," Tony says. "I don't think the big guy could even talk when we first hung out."

Bruce shrinks back down to normal size and puts his glasses on. "Anyway, Vale, this room has been thoroughly smash tested. The Hulk can't break out, and believe me, we've tried when Tony has been unusually annoying." Tony grins proudly. "Even if you don't have control when you transform, you won't be able to hurt anybody.

"Daddy tried hard to smash," Shanta says excitedly, "but the room does not smash! Go, Vale! I want to see wolf!"

Vale stares at her incredulously, but the girl has no fear, no negative thought or emotion at all. She is genuinely excited for him. She has faith that this will work. "The wolf is scary, though," he says. _To me most of all._

"So is Green Daddy," Shanta giggles, "Only is not scary because is Daddy. Wolf will not be scary, because is Vale!"

"You don't have to if you really don't want to," Doctor Banner cautions, stepping out of the last of the multiple thick doors that lead into the room. Vale shakes his head.

"I'll go…" he says, stepping towards the door. Thor places a hand on his nephew's shoulder.

"Vale, you are being very brave," he says sincerely. Vale shakes his head.

"I'm scared," he whispers. Thor squeezes his shoulder and then lets go.

"Then you are all the braver," he says. "Being without fear is foolish. To be without fear is to not understand the danger you face. You know exactly what you approach, and yet you continue on. You are a brave boy."

Vale nods and walks through the doors. They seal shut behind him.

"'Scuse me…" Tony says, pushing past Steve to get to the camera controls. "Jarvis, if anything from Pepper or SHIELD comes through, let me know, otherwise do not disturb."

"Unless the building's attacked again," Clint points out.

"Do all of you really need to be here?" Tony whines. "It's kinda crowded…" They all crane to watch as Vale walks into the middle of the room and looks around uncertainly.

"I'm fine with everyone being here," Bruce admits softly, nodding slightly towards Shanta, who is watching Vale intently. He's pretty sure that he's completely failing at raising the girl in anything resembling a normal life, so he's going to at least ensure that she's as safe as can be. "Alright, Vale," he adds into the mic. "The room's sealed. Whenever you want to."

Vale nods and dips his head. He jerks forwards sharply as his hind legs change shape, becoming no longer suited for a bipedal position, and catches himself on his front paws as his head comes up again, stretching out into a wolf's snout. Thick black fur has sprouted all over his body. His clothes seem to have been included in the transformation, which is almost seamless and takes barely three seconds. Bruce wishes he could learn that trick.

Wolf-Vale looks around, sniffing the air and snarling. He barks and howls, turning around and around, scrutinizing every area of the room.

"Very big now," Shanta observes.

"He actually looks… scared, kinda," Peter adds. "A bit like a lost puppy, y'know? Only showing his teeth and barking to make himself look bigger and scarier."

"I wonder if that's it?" Bruce says. "Wolves are pack animals, after all…" He looks at Thor. "Thor, what do you know about shapeshifting? Is it common?"

"Not particularly," Thor says. "Father can do it, through a branch of magic unique to the King of Asgard. His word truly is law. He is not adept at it, however, not like Loki is."

"Loki's a shapeshifter too?" Steve asks. "That's never come up before."

"It takes vast amounts of magical power and talent to learn how to do," Thor says. He smiles vaguely. "Loki started doing it when he was six. He had no control at all over it then, however. The animal's mind would overtake him and he would stay whatever shape he took until he fell asleep and the spell waned."

"The animal's mind?" Peter asks. Thor nods, frowning.

"I understand little of such things myself," he admits. "Loki has always been the clever one. Perhaps the shape of the mind changes with the body?"

"Well, if the inside of his body's changes as well as the outside, maybe his brain's changed as well," Bruce comments, watching the wolf back against a wall, snarling at the empty room. He realizes that the room must smell very strongly of the Hulk and hopes that this isn't panicking Vale. "Human- and I guess Asgardian- brains are different from animal brains. We've got the prefrontal lobe, which allows conscious thought. Right now, he's not capable of that. He probably can't even remember how he got into the room, the reasons behind it are too complex. Animal brains don't really do reasoning, they do cause and effect. You can train a mouse to press a button to get food and it'll never question why pressing the button makes food happen, just that it does."

"So right now Vale can only think like a wolf?" Clint asks. "How do wolves think?"

"They think in packs," Peter says. They all look at him. "My dad had tons of books about animals and animal biology, probably for his research. I read them religiously as a kid, just 'cause they were his…"

"So what'd you read about wolves?" Tony asks, nodding at the image of the wolf. "How do they work?"

"Well… wolves have a very tight social hierarchy, and their entire lives are run by it," Peter says. "The heads of the pack are the Alpha and his mate. Most of the pack will be their pups, though not all of them. When they hunt or fight, they do it in a pack, under the Alpha's direction. Every movement of the pack is dictated by the Alpha, where they live, when they hunt... sometimes young wolves will leave to find a mate and free territory, some challenge the Alpha. The Alpha Bitch doesn't really get challenged, her position is directly related to and decided by the Alpha…" he shakes his head. "Sorry, that's nothing to do with Vale, he's male."

Thor scrutinizes the screen closely for a moment. "Yes, he is male," he says with some relief.

"You had to check?" Bruce asks cautiously. Thor nods.

"Loki occasionally shifted into female form, aesoid or animal," he explains. "It did cause some trouble, not least because, even when he was more accomplished at it, it still took many years to keep his mind entirely in the grip of his soul…"

"Back up a minute," Tony interrupts, "What's an aesoid?"

Thor looks confused. "A species in a similar form to an aesir," he says obviously. "A being composed of two arms, two legs, one head, of similar facial structure…"

"Down here we call that "humanoid", but I guess you guys were probably here first," Bruce comments dryly. "So. Transforming takes a lot of practice just to be able to consciously do it back or have any control over his mind, so right now he's just a big wolf who's scared without his pack."

"It depends if he thinks he's the Alpha or not," Peter says. "I'd guess he doesn't- he's too young, even if he's huge- and he doesn't really know what to do without the direction of the Alpha or the assistance of the pack. That's all just crazy animal lashing out."

"He is angry because he is lonely," Shanta pipes up. "Maybe he need other dog to play with?"

"I don't think that's a good idea, Shanta," Bruce says, patting her head. Vale has sat down by the wall and is still looking about him and growling. He looks very twitchy. "He's looking pretty territorial."

"Thor, where are you going?" Steve demands. Thor walks out of the control room and over to the first of the doors into the Smash Room.

"Tony, please allow my entrance," Thor says calmly. "It may be possible for him to recognize my scent, to recognize me as family. If so, I may be able to calm him."

"Thor… you two aren't actually blood related, are you?" Steve cautions. "If he's running on pure instinct, he might not see you as a relative…"

"It is a risk I shall take," Thor says firmly. "I have faced those more powerful than he and emerged unscathed. I am confident that I can ensure that neither of us are harmed."

"Besides, wolf packs aren't all related," Peter adds. "Sometimes they'll pick up other wolves, strays and outcasts, and treat them the same as relatives if they build up a strong enough bond of trust."

"With dogs, you must stay low and small and hold out your hand open," Shanta offers. "And no teeth, because to dogs that is, uh… is scary, is trying to look scary!"

"Aggressive," Bruce says. Shanta nods.

"Thank you for the advice, Lady Shanta," Thor says with a formal bow. The first door opens and he steps through, waiting patiently as he goes through the three doors one at a time. Vale's head snaps up as the door opens and he snarls, immediately standing up to face the door.

Thor steps through and makes eye contact with Vale. He moves very slowly, crouching down and reaching a hand out towards Vale, palm up.

"Vale," he says softly. Vale's head twitches. He seems to recognize the name. "Vale, it is I. Thor. Your Uncle. It is okay, Vale. Do you recognize me?"

Vale barks loudly, stepping forwards. Thor stays very still, not flinching or retreating, keeping eye contact with the huge wolf. Vale steps closer to him, slowly, sniffing at the air.

"This is the first time he's transformed that he hasn't been under attack, right?" Tony comments. "He might be calmer now. Might not be that dangerous."

Vale suddenly snarls and bites down on Thor's outstretched arm. Thor flinches and his free hand fists.

"Dogs in Kolkata do that," Shanta says. "If you hurt them, they think you enemy. If you do nothing, they think you not enemy and not hurt you more."

"He's just working on animal instinct, he's not thinking," Steve points out. "That still makes him dangerous."

"That's what we're working on," Bruce says, leaning over to the mic. "Thor? Are you alright?"

Vale twitches at the sound of the voice. Thor does not look away from his nephew.

"I am fine, Doctor, thank you," he says calmly. "This is not a serious injury. Calm down, Vale. Look. I shall not hurt you. Do you understand, Vale? It is safe."

Vale growls for a few more minutes, but as Thor continues to not attack him his relaxes. He slowly unclenches his jaws to let his uncle go. He sniffs at the blood that wells up from the injuries, then he licks them.

"Now you must go to Doctor for shot," Shanta says, making a face. Bruce laughs and crouches down to put an arm around her shoulders.

"I don't think Thor can get rabies, Shanta," he assures her.

{}

"It's getting close to dinnertime," Bruce said, checking his watch. It has been two hours and Vale has still not changed back. Thor is sitting next to his nephew, occasionally scratching behind his ears as he talks calmly and continuously to him. He is resting his injured arm across his knee a little tenderly. Tony can tell that Bruce is dying to check it out, but it's not bleeding badly and infection seems unlikely. "Shanta, it's time to go."

"But Daddy, will Vale be okay?" Shanta asks, looking up at her adoptive father in concern. "Daddy, you must help Vale! You promise!"

"I'll come back and look after him after dinner and bedtime, okay?" Bruce says gently. Shanta pouts.

"Tell you what, Shanta," Steve says, crouching down and yet still towering over the girl, "why don't you come with me? We can eat dinner with Mrs Parker. She'll probably be lonely if Peter's busy here. Then we can play video games before bed, what do you say?"

"Can we, Daddy?" Shanta asks Bruce excitedly. Tony grins. Steve's a lot of fun to play video games with because of how _into_ it he gets. Steve Rodgers is intense and serious about _everything_.

"I promise that she'll be in bed at a decent hour," he says seriously to Bruce. "You don't need me here just now. I want to contact SHIELD and find out if they've reached a verdict on what we're doing about Anadyr, anyway."

"Thank you, Steve," Bruce says gratefully. Steve stands up and reaches down for Shanta's hand.

"Come on, little lady," he says. "You get to pick the first game."

"I'll go call Nat for you," Clint says, getting up and stretching. "There's nothing going on here. Have fun, try not to kill anybody…"

"Not in the evening's plans," Tony promises. He glances at Peter. "I thought your aunt was trying to make you get back on a normal sleep schedule before you go back to school?"

"Uh, yeah," Peter says sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck, "but this is way too interesting. Even if I go, I'll probably just end up sitting up getting Jarvis to give me a video feed. I keep trying to figure out how it works. How does he gain all that mass? Where does it come from? Where does it go? How does it not brain damage him to reform his brain like that?"

"It's possible to stimulate bones and muscles into rapid production in order to gain mass," Bruce says with a nervous little grin. "It does terrible things to the metabolism, of course… I'd wonder more about being able to rearrange his body structure like that… and you've got a pretty good point on the brain… there's the matter of the soul, which from what Thor's said about Hel and Valhalla does seem to definitively exist…"

"How do you check or quantify that, though?" Tony says, throwing his hands up in the air. "Thor keeps claiming that Asgardian magic is just science we don't understand yet, but that means it's gotta have internal rules of some sort, and I can't see any yet…"

"Well, let's start with what we know…" Bruce says, grabbing a computer screen and starting to make notes.

"Mister Stark," Jarvis interrupts them some time later, "A Bifrost portal has opened over Stark Tower."

"Who came out?" Tony asks, pulling away from a page of heat scans of the Smash Room. Vale's body temperature is higher than a human's, which isn't odd for a wolf, but Thor's is actually lower, and they've been arguing for a while about what that means. Bruce and Peter, slightly guiltily, turn to the video feed to the Smash Room to make sure that nothing's happened. Thor is still sitting there, still scratching Vale's ears and talking to him. The gigantic wolf still shows no signs of shrinking back to a boy.

"Lady Sif, Mister Volstagg, Mister Hogan and Mister Fandral, sir," Jarvis reports. "The Captain has greeted them and directed them here."

"I hope nothing else happened," Peter says nervously.

You've never met them before, have you?" Bruce asked, saving the page of notes. "The Lady Sif and the Warriors Three?"

"Uh, no," Peter says. "Who are they?"

"Thor's old buddies," Tony says, peeking out of the door to the hall to watch the lift. "They're… well, you know how Thor's normally pretty lively?"

"Yeah…?" Peter says warily.

"Like that. Only more so. Except Hogan. They don't call him "Hogan the Grim" for nothing."

"We've only met them once ourselves," Bruce says. "They came down to visit Thor for a couple of days. Ate tons, laughed a lot, told some really wild battle stories and outdrank Tony."

"Just because I fell asleep before I finished drinking does not mean they outdrank me," Tony argues. "Anyway, Steve outdrank _everybody_. Not being able to get drunk is cheating."

"Also, sir, Miss Potts and Mrs Parker would both like to know if you're eating and have arranged for dinner to be sent in to you," Jarvis adds, a touch reproachfully.

"Tell 'em to triple whatever they've made with Volstagg here," Tony says as the lift opens. "M'lady, guys…. What's up?"

…_Wasn't this just a oneshot, long ago and far away? I actually have a good forty thousand words of this sitting in wait, I don't even know how, but it's all for bits that I'm not yet. _

_It all has to be little or large…_


	11. Children

_**Title: **__Vale: Children_

_**Words: **__4777_

_**Notes: **__Sleipnir: the story of a weird guy getting knocked up by a giant horse. Surely that's hilarious instead of angsty, right? …challengeaccepted dot jpeg. Also, I start really thinking about the cultural differences between Midgard and Asgard and it probably shows._

_It isn't stated explicitly, but this chapter does thus contain implications of rape, something that is probably bestiality (does it count if both parties are horses?) and underage sexual relationships and teen pregnancy. You have been warned._

"The Man of Iron!" Volstagg greets Tony with a boisterous hug. Fandral greets Tony with a bro-fist that Tony taught him the last time the pair of them went drinking together. Hogan gives them a curt nod, which is as friendly as the stoic warrior gets. Lady Sif holds out her hand, which Tony rolls his eyes at but does kiss. What Pepper has spent year trying to do- teach Tony to have manners- Sif managed in five minutes with a knife. "And Doctor Banner as well! It is a pleasure to look on you all again!"

A chef appears out of the service lift with a rolling table of dinner. Volstagg grins brightly as the man rolls the table over to the wall and backs into the lift without a second glance at Sif and the Warriors Three. Tony's regular staff are long used to irregular guests.

"And a greater pleasure to look on your delectable Midgardian cuisine, no doubt," Fandral says with a smirk. "It is a pleasure to meet you both again. It has been too long since we last caroused. And who is your friend?"

"Peter Parker, the Spiderman," Tony says. "Peter, Since Thor's not here to do the introductions, let me show you around. First, meet the Lady Sif, the finest warrior maiden in all of Asgard. Be polite and kiss her hand or she'll cut yours off."

"Oh, he's just a boy," Sif says as Peter nervously kisses her hand. "I wouldn't cut _both_ of them off."

"And this is Fandral the Dashing and Hogan the Grim, because they're creative like that in Asgard," Tony says, pointing to the warriors in turn. "And Volstagg the Voluminous- geez, man, leave some food for the rest of us, won't you? That's our dinner!"

"Dinner?" Volstagg says, putting down a whole chicken. "This is but a snack on Asgard."

"Yeah, well, the puny humans have lower metabolisms," Bruce says dryly, nodding at them and retreating back into the control room. Tony grabs two plates and starts stacking them up and motions to Peter to do the same before Volstagg gets back to work.

"You guys here to see Thor?" Tony says, returning to the control room and handing Bruce his plate. All except Volstagg follow him.

"We heard that the Lady Sigyn had returned alone, and were curious as to what has happened," Fandral explains. "Truth be told, we have been missing Thor and have been worried about what has been happening regarding Loki's son."

"They're both doing alright for now," Bruce says, gesturing to the viewscreen. Sif flinches at the sight of the huge wolf that Thor is talking calmly to and the wounds on the Thunder God's arm. Even Hogan looks surprised.

"He is still transformed?!" Sif says in horror.

"Well, he turned back to a kid," Peter says, looking a little unnerved by her absolute shock, "but he turned back into a wolf one time and only turned back because-"

"We figured that if he was going to continue to transform, he'd better get the hang of it," Bruce quickly interrupts. "He doesn't seem to be in his right mind much- he hasn't transformed back of his own will, or really reacted intelligently to anything Thor's done or said- but at least he stopped himself attacking Thor."

"How does he have any control at all, becoming a monster?" Sif argues. "It makes no sense! You ought not to be encouraging him to transform!"

"Sif, be calm," Hogan says, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Perhaps he is different from Fenrir."

"His mother's a water nymph instead of a jotun, after all," Fandral says. "Her blood might protect him."

"Fenwho?" Tony asks.

"You've known Thor a year and you never read any mythology?" Bruce says dryly. "I never asked him about the stuff concerning Loki- there doesn't ever seem to be a tactful time to talk about that guy- but Fenrir was one of Loki's sons, wasn't he? Turned into a giant wolf and got stuck that way, unlike Vale. He had to be sealed away because he couldn't be killed…"

"He and his brother and sister were monsters all," Sif says, looking away from the video feed. "Thor fought Fenrir and Jormundgand. How can he be so calm around Vale after that?"

"It's not like Vale's dangerous when he's not a wolf," Peter says. He's become quite fond of Vale in the past month, taking to the kid like a big brother, and his normal shyness on meeting new people is fading as he grows defensive. "He wants to give the kid a second chance, is that so wrong?"

"No, of course not," Fandral says quickly. "It is simply… Asgardians have long memories, and we become awful set in our ways, that is all. No doubt that is why Loki has so often disquieted people, even before his true heritage was known."

"Loki has never been particularly normal," Sif says, crossing her arms. "We befriended him through Thor, and indeed, he used to be fun, sometimes… but he has never been a warrior. He fights with tricks and traps rather than hand to hand, like a true warrior should. How can it be called a victory if it is won by trickery?"

"You must admit," Volstagg says around another mouthful of chicken, "there have been a fair number of confrontations that we should not have escaped alive were it not for Loki's tricks."

"Sorcerers are not to be trusted," Hogan says firmly. "Everyone knows this. Loki has only proved it."

"Well, you haven't known him as long as we have," Fandral says uncomfortably. "Really, he wasn't a _bad_ chap as a boy… a little different, yes, a little strange, but not _bad_… He just didn't take to proper training the way the rest of us did."

"He didn't take to his combat training because he often refused to attend," Sif argues. "Remember how often he would not appear, and Thor would have to make excuses for him? Then we would find him in odd corners, nose in a book!"

"All kids have to go through combat training in Asgard?" Peter asks, eyes wide. Sif nods, giving him a dumbfounded look.

"But of course," she says. "Asgard is one of the most highly developed realms, and as such our ancient duty is as guardians and peacekeepers of the Nine Realms. Our proficiency in the field of battle is our greatest asset, our warriors our finest citizens. Loki and Thor's education was most important of all, as potential future Kings of Asgard…"

"Only Thor ever would have been King," Hogan corrects her. "A jotun could never be crowned King of Asgard."

"Why not?" Tony asks with a shrug. "Because he didn't like fighting? C'mon, surely there's stuff a king needs to be able to do besides kick people's asses!"

"Wisdom comes in time, but constant training is essential," Fandral explains. "In any case, Jotunheim is our greatest enemy since time immemorial, a force of chaos and destruction. The people would never accept a jotun as their King."

"If they hadn't known he was a jotun, could they?" Bruce says. "I mean, was it simply a matter of his race?"

"Loki has always been clever," Sif says. "Cleverer, perhaps, than Thor, but… he has always been tricksy with it. When he did attend combat training, he would use his magic to keep up! He would play tricks with shadows and illusions to fool his opponents!"

"Play to his strengths," Tony says with a shrug. "Is that a bad thing?"

"It is dishonourable," Hogan says grimly. Tony rolls his eyes.

"I dunno about you race of super-soldiers," he says, now slightly tetchy, "but down here, the body count on the battlefield counts more than honour. If a lot's riding on the outcome, there's nothing wrong with fighting dirty to make sure you get the win."

"You fight dirty anyway," Bruce points out.

"Says the guy that _bullets bounce off of_," Tony shoots back.

"You have not been raised as warriors," Sif says, scowling. "Our honour is everything to us. How else can we hope to attain the great paradise that is Valhalla?"

"Personally, I'm not interested in a heaven that's all fighting and no second chances," Bruce says, his gaze suddenly fixing on the screen. "Hey… looks like Vale's fallen asleep. He's turning back."

"Is he?" Tony and Peter both lean over the screen, and even Sif and the Warriors cannot contain some curiosity to see the huge wolf shrink into a boy again. Thor carefully picks up the sleeping boy and carries him over to the door. Tony starts opening all the locks for him.

"My friends!" Thor says in surprise when he steps out. Tony can't be the only one to notice the way his arms tighten around Vale protectively. "What a wonderful surprise! I did not think you would return to Midgard again so soon!"

"Thor, how do you?" Fandral says brightly. "And how does the Lady Jane?"

"She has gone to Alaska for her work," Thor says, glancing down at Vale to ensure that he is asleep. "She may have located something that will help us find where Loki vanished too, and who was truly behind the army that he lead against Midgard."

"Is there to be fighting?" Volstagg says excitedly. Thor nods.

"Most likely," he says. "Come, I must put Vale to his bed, and then I will gladly discuss with you all that has transpired."

"Good thing you have to build everything big," Bruce comments as the eight of them, nine including the sleeping Vale, pile into the elevator. It takes them smoothly up to Thor's floor, where Thor immediately leaves down the hall opposite the one that leads to Loki's room. Bruce heads off to see if there's a first-aid kit in Thor's flat while Tony takes their dinners and drifts over to a couch that puts him between Sif and the Warriors and Loki. Thor trusts his friends, but distrust of Loki must be at an all-time high in Asgard, and after all one of the reasons for only allowing limited Asgardian travel to Earth is the likelihood that many of them will wish to extract traditional Asgardian justice on the God of Mischief.

"He really did turn back," Volstagg comments, watching Thor go with Vale. "Isn't that good?"

"Then it is doubtful that he is the same as Fenrir," Fandral says, looking to Hogan and Sif. "It may simply be shapeshifting of the sort that Loki used to engage in. Before he mastered it, he always turned back when he was asleep, did he not?"

"Well, except for when he spent two years as a mare!" Volstagg laughs.

"Wait, what?" Tony asks curiously. Sif scowls at Volstagg.

"We are not to speak of that," she says firmly.

"It was never actually _forbidden_ to speak of it," Fandral points out. "It is simply that… well, we don't."

"Why not?" Tony looks up at Thor as he re-enters the room. "Thor, why won't they talk about why your brother got stuck as a horse?"

"It was something of a shameful affair all around," Thor says uncomfortably. He sits between his Midgardian and Asgardian friends, in a position to defend Loki or Vale if needs be. Bruce returns with a med kit and Thor bows his head gratefully as the doctor starts cleaning up his arm. "I have tried not to even think on it for a long while."

"Isn't a mare a _female_ horse?" Peter asks, looking a little nonplussed. Thor nods.

"Loki enjoyed shapeshifting and exploring the worlds as animals," he explains. "He insisted that it was not a frivolous skill, and when he had chance to prove it…"

"It was that craftsman that was the trouble, was it not?" Volstagg says. "The one to build the wall between the city and the sorceror's forest? I recall that the King spent some years searching for a fit craftsman, and when finally he found one the man demanded an impossible price!"

"Yes, he ought to have settled for a lesser builder," Thor sighs, "but he had decided upon a wall after a terrible incident when we were children that brought great harm upon Loki…"

"Great harm?" Bruce asks, frowning.

"His lips were sewn together."

"Mother of-" Tony slaps his hand over his mouth, massaging his lips as if feeling Loki's pain. Peter also winces sharply. Bruce can't help thinking that sometimes he'd like to sew _their_ lips shut, as much as the pair of them like to talk, but still… "When he was a _kid? _ Ouch…"

"He was fine soon after, once the Queen and Eir had healed him," Sif says. "But the King decided that the denizens of the forest were too dangerous. That was why he was determined for the best wall possible to keep forest sorcerers out of the city and curious young aesir from harm…"

"Fair enough," Tony says with a shrug. "Craftsman sounds like a savvy git. What'd he want? Mighty lands? Some fine-ass celestial maidens to call his own? Stock options?"

"The sun, your moon for his lands, and the hand in marriage of the Lady Freya, most beautiful of all women," Fandral says. Tony whistles, glancing out of the window.

"Well, looks like the sun's still there, so what did Odin pull?" he asks. "I mean, me, I've got lawyers that could twist that contract to hell and back. I bet I could promise him the stars and end up giving him a bottle of champagne…"

"Do you have lawyers on Asgard?" Peter asks. "Guys whose job it is to twist the law in people's favour- or, y'know, not- for money? Probably not, because putting it like that, honour really doesn't come into it…."

"We have none of these creatures that you speak of," Fandral says, frowning in confusion. "The law is and is decided by the King. He could not convince the craftsman to change his price, and instead gave him six months to complete the task which ought to have taken him eighteen."

"Sneaky! I like it!" Tony laughs. "No way to get out of that!"

"The estimate was for the craftsman working alone," Sif says. "He made no mention of his steed, Svadlifari."

"Wait… I think I heard this one from Doctor Selvig…" Bruce says with a frown. "With the horse, he pretty much got it done on time, didn't he?"

"And didn't the Lady Freya pitch a fit!" Fandral laughs. "Oh, I can still recall how you could hear the arguing all across the realm! She _refused _to wed, and as she is a Vanir she is one of the few capable of resisting the orders of the King, but of course he could not renege on his word… 'Twas a conundrum indeed!"

"And was not as amusing to us," Thor says with a frown. "It strained Father greatly, trying to come to an amenable conclusion. Loki thought only to help, I'm sure."

"The stories say he turned into a mare and Svadlifari found her, uh, distracting…" Bruce coughs delicately. "And that he gave chase and Loki led him on a merry chase for a full day and night, undoing the craftsman's work."

"Three days, in fact, the last three days of the craftsman's service," Thor corrects. "He attempted to finish on time, but finished a day after deadline. When Father denied him his payment, he grew rather angry…"

"He transpired to be a hrimthur!" Sif says, sounding scandalised.

"Bless you," Tony says.

"A what now?" Peter asks, looking around at the Asgardians for an explanation.

"Denizens of Niflheim," Thor says, twisting his hands. "Their presence in Asgard is forbidden. His beastly nature consumed him, he took on monstrous form to attack Father, and was killed."

"Beastly nature?" Bruce says flatly. "I mean, I know I'm only hearing this second hand, but getting pissed off when your, uh, contractor twists out of paying, that kinda sounds fair enough…"

"Yeah, I mean, that was an impressive dick move," Tony says, "but still, nevertheless, in essence… a dick move."

"The contract was void in any case by the craftsman turning out to be a hrimthur," Sif scoffs. "Loki ought not to have used his tricks. He only brought shame and suffering upon himself."

"Well, he was, what, fifteen?" Fandral says. Bruce's face suddenly goes very blank. "Just the beginning of those decades where we all do silly things…"

"_Silly_ is one thing," Thor says. "My brother's shenanigans were quite another." He sighs heavily as Tony, Peter and Bruce all turn inquisitive gazes on him. "He returned after the craftsman's death, still in mare form and could not change back. It was several weeks before we could figure out why his body refused to shift from the form of a mare. It transpired to be because he was pregnant."

Tony had started eating while the Asgardians were telling their tale. He nearly chokes on a mouthful of potato. Bruce has to run over and thump him hard on the back to get him breathing again.

"I… what…?" Peter gapes. "So, um, by _distracting_ you meant…"

"If you are inquiring after the precise circumstances that lead to my brother's… condition," Thor says uncomfortably, "the general circumstances were easy to guess and we never asked for specifics. We built a special stable for him in my chambers for safety's sake. He was the butt of much jest for becoming stuck in horse form. We couldn't let it be widely known he was _pregnant_."

"Sif and I only knew because we have been friends with Thor since the three of us were very small children," Fandral explains, "so he told us. Sif and I are both of noble families of Asgard, you see, so as we were born around the same time as Thor we have always been playmates."

"Indeed, and Volstagg joined our little group perhaps a year later," Thor says with a nod. "I became embroiled in a conflict with a gang of youths a few years older than myself for speaking ill of my brother. Volstagg was among them."

"I felt that Berg had gone a little overboard, perhaps," Volstagg says defensively. "Truth be told, the boy had been on my nerves for some years. He could never find sport nor joy in anything but others' suffering. Why, he couldn't even appreciate a good roast boar!"

"A great sin indeed," Fandral laughs, slapping Volstagg's back. He catches Hogan's disquieted look. "Ah, Hogan… we have never spoken to you of this either, have we?"

"No," Hogan says simply. "It has never come up between us. I was not aware, Thor, that your brother was a mother at such a young age."

"So Loki couldn't turn back because of the baby?" Peter asks. "Or, uh, foal, or… To be honest, talking to you guys, I'm not sure if you and I mean the same thing by "horse". He was stuck because he was pregnant, basically?"

"Makes sense," Bruce observes. "How did he take it, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Well, he panicked, of course," Thor says with a frown. "It was quite an abnormal and frightening situation even for him. It was suggested that if the baby were killed, he could transform back, but he shied away from that outcome. He could not bring himself to do it. I think Mother was rather more understanding than Father about that…"

"Really, only your mother and you attended on him," Sif says, crossing her arms. "We only saw him when we came to retrieve you. I never saw your father there."

"He visited rarely," Thor said. "Mother and I cared for Loki. He eventually settled down. Apparently, being a horse is rather tranquil. He treated it as extensive practice in retaining himself in another body. He even managed to communicate telepathically after about a year. He even began to look forward to the birth."

"He looked forward to the birth of his ill-gotten freaky horse baby?" Tony said. Bruce nodded.

"Some mothers grow to love their baby deeply in a mere nine months of pregnancy, even if the conception was… unwanted," he says, veteran of the world's social and medical hellholes. "After carrying the kid for two whole years, no wonder Loki got attached…"

"A few weeks before the birth, he told me quite excitedly that he was going to name the baby Sleipnir," Thor remembers, half fondly, half uncomfortably. "And that he was ready for it to stop kicking…"

"That birth must've been _weird_," Peter says, rubbing his head. "If he turned back to a hu- an aesir immediately afterwards…"

"He did not," Thor says, shaking his head. "Not of his will, in any case."

{}

_Loki scrambled and slipped on the floor, trying to stand up awkwardly on his hands and feet. He couldn't bring himself to his feet; it had been too long since he was bipedal. Thor grabbed him around the shoulders and helped him to a shaky standing position. Loki's face twisted into horror and confusion as he failed to change into a horse, as stablehands with blankets surrounded the weakly whinnying foal._

"_Father, let me change back," he said hoarsely. "He- He's newborn, he still needs me, just for a little while…"_

"_The stablehands will take proper care of him," Odin said, nodding to the stable master as he walked over to his sons. The stablehands picked up Sleipnir in a sheet, carrying him away. "There are mares there that can feed and care for him."_

"_No- he's mine, I have to-" Loki pleaded. "Father, you can't, he's my-"_

_Thor caught his brother as Odin slapped Loki across the face, cutting off his gibbering. Frigga pressed her hands over her mouth in shock. "Remember yourself!" Odin thundered. "You are not a horse! You are a man, and barely have the right to call yourself that after this debacle!"_

"_Father-" Thor began, but Odin glared at him and Thor fell silent. He could feel his brother shaking in his arms. _

"_You are a prince of Asgard, nothing else," Odin said, turning and striding away. "Sleipnir will be cared for well by the best stablemaster in the Nine Realms. You will return to your education and your duties, and we will not speak of this again."_

"_I will speak to him," Frigga said, storming out after her husband. She looked furious. At something of a loss, Thor walked his shaky-legged brother through to the room that he had not slept in for two years, sitting down with him on the sumptuous bed._

"_This will be more comfortable than a pile of hay, I'll wager," he said, trying to make his tone friendly and jovial. He pretended not to see the tears dripping from Loki's chin as his brother hunched over._

"_Don't, brother," Loki said quietly. "Just… just leave me alone." He wrenched his shoulders. The movement was weak and awkward, not the shoulders he had become accustomed to, but Thor took the message and let him go._

"_Loki…" he tried again. "Your mind is not right just now. You need to rest, you need time for your mind to return to normal…"_

"_Just leave me ALONE, Thor!" Loki shouted, waving his hand at his brother. A random burst of magic sparked off of the door near Thor's head. Thor beat a hasty retreat._

{}

"Well, he was fine, wasn't he?" Volstagg said. "A couple of days later he was in the combat hall as if nothing had happened! He was a little sluggish that day, true, but…"

"We were all to act as if nothing had happened," Thor says, shaking his head. "The disgrace to Loki would be too great. So we did, even Loki. You know that my brother has always been gifted with a silver tongue and a profound ability to hide his feelings."

"I'm still trying to figure out what was _most_ messed up about that whole situation," Peter says, looking at Tony and Bruce for help. "I gotta say, you aesir really break my weird-o-meter, and I specially recalibrated that thing when I ended up with radioactive spider powers."

"Speaking of messed up, can we back up to the part where your brother was _fifteen_ when he got knocked up by a giant horse, probably non-consensually?" Tony asks. "I mean, actually fifteen? I don't have much of a handle on Asgardian timescales, but like, younger than Pete here?"

"Aesir grow somewhat faster than you mortals, at least until we reach manhood at fourteen of your years," Fandral says. "He was grown by the time of the whole incident."

"And of course, he was seventeen by the time of the birth," Sif says.

"So wait… how old is Vale in human years?" tony asks curiously. "I mean, I took him for about twelve…"

"Closer to eight, in fact," Thor says. "Indeed, as Asgard has no solar cycle, we often measure time by your years. By that time, Vale shall soon be eight years of age."

"Oh… geez," Peter says, going white. "He's turned into a wolf and eaten his brother and he's younger than Shanta?"

"Sleipnir was just a horse?" Bruce asks. "He couldn't turn into a kid or anything?"

"Father did try, but no," Thor says sadly. "A very intelligent horse, is Sleipnir, the finest in all Asgard… but no more than a horse. He remains in the stables to this day. He does not seem discontented with his life, and as his birth is not widely known he is quite highly regarded. It is difficult to think of him as my nephew…"

"But Loki thought of him as his son, didn't he?" Bruce asks, looking troubled. "Does he still?"

"I did occasionally happen upon him visiting Sleipnir in the stables," Thor says with a shrug. "I do not know how often he did so, but he was still doing so when Narfe and Vale were young boys. He told them only that they were visiting a fine steed, not their eldest half-brother."

"I do hope he never took them to visit their _other_ half-brother in Asgard," Fandral says, half-nervous, half-joking.

"So you were serious about a horse being Vale's half-brother?"

"Captain," Thor says in surprise as Steve walks up to the group. He is coming from the corridor to Loki's room. "How long have you been here?"

"I went to visit Loki," Steve says. "Haven't tried talking to him in a long time. He got kinda pissed off at a "pathetic weakling" like me daring to talk to him, a "mere mortal whose only strength was given to him"." He gives Tony a pointed look.

"Look, I told you, I was exaggerating when I said _everything _special came out of a bottle…" Tony says uncomfortably. Steve smiles and shakes his head.

"I know," he says, "and I told Loki that I was grateful to have been given strength. I'm not going to piss and moan about "not being able to stand on my own", not when what I was given saved people's lives. No matter what the outcome's been, I'll always be grateful for what I was given. Nobody can really stand on their own, anyway. We all need people in our lives. Our army, our team, our friends, our family… even gods need that." He smiles again. "Loki didn't like that much, it's fair to say."

"The Captain speaks the truth," Hogan says. "The strength of Asgard is in its army. We have always been mightier as a team than alone."

"And how often have you appreciated that?" Steve says sternly. "Dr Erskine told me why he chose me, out of a whole army full of tough guys, for the super-soldier project. He told me that only a weak man can know the true value of strength because a strong man, a man who has known power all his life, cannot truly respect his strength. Yours is a society of strong men and women who have never had to stand on their own, or feel weak. And that's not entirely bad. It allows most of your people to live in peace and prosperity. I'm sure it's protected our realm many times. But all I'm saying is, maybe you don't really realize what strength you have, or what it means not to have it."

"_Sir,_" Jarvis says, "_there is a call coming through from Director Fury. It is apparently of high urgency._"

"Patch it through," Tony says. "Might be the first time he's broken an awkward moment instead of causing it," he mutters to Peter, looking from the affronted-looking Asgardians to the stern Captain.

_That awkward moment when you realize that some syllables got switched around in your head and you've been spelling Jormundgand's name wrong the whole time : x I never know whether or not to leave the _r _on the end on; I'm not clear on whether or not you actually pronounce it, but I've seen Asgard and Midgard both written with the _r _on the end and it doesn't seem to be pronounced there, so I don't know. If someone does, please tell me?_

_Svadlifari's name gives me trouble, too. Is there even a "correct" way to write most of these names, or just a matter of opinion?_

_Also, that awkward moment when I realize that, as aesir and jotun are being used as species names, I need to stop capitalizing them. I already have to deal with enough crap over whether or not it's right to capitalize Pokémon species names, I'm not going to get into it here XP_

_On another note, I just saw _The Amazing Spider-man _yesterday, and I really enjoyed it. I'd still rank it below _The Dark Knight Rises _and _The Avengers_, but it was still really good. I think I like Andrew Garfield better than Toby Maguire as Spiderman. He was so snarky :D "Seriously? You think I'm a cop? In a skintight red and blue outfit?" My Peter Parker so far has mainly been based on the guy I remember from the comics I read as a kid rather than Toby Maguire, but some Andrew Garfield's probably going to make its way it now : x Among other things, before I was unable to decide whether Spiderman's webs in this are organic or mechanical, but I really loved the mechanical ones in TAS so there ya go, they're mechanical now XD _


	12. Fear

_**Title: **__Vale: Fear_

_**Words: **__3552_

_**Notes: **__As the field of battle approaches, the Asgardians expect to be able to connect more with Midgardian culture, but there is still much that each side does not understand about the other. _

"_Anyone who can't fly, get your asses on a jet and get up here,_" Fury orders as soon as the link is made. "_We moved the helicarrier not far off. Rogers, you, Romanov and Barton'll be leading an incursion into the camp. Stark, we got permission for you and Banner to get into that lab- Spidey too, if he ain't up past his bedtime- to check out their data and get all you can on atmospheric disturbances so I can know when and where somebody broke the perimeter of my goddamn planet. Thor, you're bringin' Loki with us._"

"What?" Thor demands sharply. "Why?"

"'_Cause he's moved up from a crazy prisoner to another threat to my goddamn planet, and I want him under better lockdown than bein' in a broken-up building with just you guardin' him,"_ Fury says. "_'Sides, if we're dealin' with the Chitauri again here, he might know somethin', and if we ain't, we're still probably dealin' with whoever gave him that staff._"

"He doesn't really ever try to be helpful," Tony points out.

"_No, but he don't stop talking, and he might say somethin' useful,_" Fury says. "_As Romanov noticed last year. Bring Vale too._" Thor's eyes narrow.

"What do you plan to do with him?" He asks warily.

"_Nothin', I swear,_" Fury says. "_We ain't gonna touch the kid. I'm just thinkin' that if Loki's gettin' his powers back, he might be a little less inclined to try an' blow my goddamn ship outta the sky if his kid's aboard._"

"He doesn't have henchmen on the outside nor his staff this time," Bruce points out. "I promise Clint and I won't break anything this time."

"_You an' Barton I trust, Loki I don't,_" Fury says firmly.

"Will it increase your feelings of security if we join you on this quest?" Fandral asks.

"Yes, it sounds as if there is to be fighting!" Volstagg says excitedly. "Allow us to aid you!"

"Director, will it be amenable to you if the Lady Sif and the Warriors Three join the assault?" Thor asks, glancing at his friends. "There are few finer warriors in the Nine Realms."

"_I'm aware of them_," Fury notes. "_Got 'em listed as honourary Avengers in case the WSC got questions. They're welcome aboard, long as they also ain't gonna break my ship._"

"We will break only those who threaten your realm," Hogan swears.

"_Good stuff. Get your asses up here now so we can finally _move_. Goddamn bureaucrats…_" He hangs up. Tony gets the impression that the Russian member of the WSC has something to do with the delay in moving out in attack.

"_Can _any of you guys fly?" Tony asks the Warriors. They shake their heads.

"Thor only can due to Mjolnir," Fandral says. "None of us have the gift of flight."

"Well, there's room for you all in the Quinjet," Steve says, standing up. "Tony, suit up. Peter, suit up and meet us to the hanger. I'll lead everyone down there. Bruce, go get Vale. Thor, you bring Loki when we let you know that there's a cell ready for him."

"Of course," Thor says with a nod. As he stands up, he reaches out his hand. Mjolnir flies to his hand from down a corridor, and in a flash of light he is wearing his armour. He nods to his friends. "I shall see you in the floating fortress. I entrust you with my nephew, Doctor."

"Why do I have to suit up?" Peter asks, a little confused.

"What, do you not want to do the secret identity thing anymore?" Tony asks. "I mean, you were pretty set on it after Osborn went after your aunt. So, y'know, SHIELD's records have been having a hard time making any link between Peter Parker and Spiderman. If they even know Peter Parker exists, it's as one of the random interns that drifts through here periodically. I mean, they normally last about three days, but you're interning with Bruce instead of me so they probably put it down to that." He winks at Bruce as the doctor leaves for Vale's room, shaking his head.

"Fury knows how to contact you if he wants to, so he's given up making a big deal about it," Steve sighs, wearing the put-upon look he always has when he's putting up with Tony's illegal activities. "But the majority of SHIELD have no idea who Spiderman is, so if you're still up for having a secret identity, you'll need to suit up to be on the helicarrier, and if so you need to go get changed now. You, Tony, go, get changed, we'll meet you in the hanger."

"Wow… thanks," Peter says, looking from Tony to Steve in pleasant surprise.

"I'll go with Thor, just in case," Tony says, heading for the lift. "C'mon, kid. If we see Barton, we'll let him know."

"I already do," Clint says, stepping out of the lift as Tony and Peter head in. "Nat contacted me. We're moving out?"

"Soon as Doctor Banner gets Vale," Steve promises, throwing a warning glance at Sif and the Warriors Three.

"As Hogan said, we wish only to harm those who would bring harm upon your realm," Sif says firmly, standing. "Whatever you may think of our society and way of life, this is what we are born and raised to do. We _protect_. And we are proud of it."

{}

There isn't much to the briefing. Loki is sent to a cell, first thing, and when he is securely locked away, Thor joins them at the main conference table on the bridge.

The first infiltration is to consist of Steve, in a muted black costume instead of the spangled one, and Natasha, with Clint watching over them from a cliffside nearby. They're to get as much of the layout of the camp as they can- specifically where the main weapons depot is, and where the teleport device is if possible- as well as get numbers of both humans and Chitauri. With that information, SHIELD will be better armed for a full-on assault, which is the point at which Sif and the Warriors Three will be involved, probably as a distraction and to take out most of the human terrorists. Steve and Natasha are to take the camp leaders alive if possible, and preferably at least one Chitauri.

This seems to be confusing the Warriors. In fact, the entire strategy meeting seems to be confusing them, so they leave to seek out the helicarrier's gym and training room. Tony and Peter are already absent, holing themselves up in a lab somewhere more or less the moment they set foot on the helicarrier, and Bruce is babysitting Vale, so only Natasha, Clint and Steve are present with Thor.

"Don't you have strategy meetings on Asgard?" Clint asks, watching them go.

"Not as such," Thor admits. "We move at the Allfather's command. There is little strategy to it, to be truthful. When we locate the enemy, we charge. That is all there is to it. Strategy is only really something that I have come to know in my time here."

"Even when it was just the five of you?" Steve asks, gesturing to the door that the Warriors left out of. "You said that all of you went on adventures of your own a lot…"

"Six of us," Thor corrects him softly. "Loki too was with us. He was the only one with any concept of stealth or subtlety, I'm afraid. We adventured where we wished, and if we were attacked, we fought to defend ourselves. It is the kind of battle in which we have been trained. It is the way in which my father was trained, the way in which our warriors have been trained for millennia."

"All the same for thousands of years?" Steve asks. "Military practice here changed a lot in the past seventy years. Does Asgardian society ever change at all?"

"Not in my lifetime," Thor says, shaking his head. "Jane once told me the difficulties that she experienced when she first chose her field of study. She said that there was a professor at her centre of education, an old man who did not approve of omen studying your sciences, and that he made things difficult for her. She was thinking of doing something else, of changing her path, when the old man grew too old and retired. He was replaced by a new teacher, one who approved of Jane and inspired her to return to her path. On Midgard, among mortals, this happens. The elders pass on, hopefully leaving the best of themselves behind, and new people with new ideas replace them. But on Asgard, that old man would have been immortal. He would not have grown too old, and would have been a teacher _forever._"

"An immortal society is unchanging," Steve says, nodding slowly. It chafes him, the Asgardians' uncompromising point of view, but he's starting to understand why they have it.

"Jane would never have been able to realize her brilliance, nor would any other woman," Thor says softly, looking down. "Things would never change. This is what we are raised in on Asgard; an unchanging way of life, and we do not question it because we are told that it is perfect, and from what we see of other realms this seems true. It seems perfect, for those of us who benefit from it."

"And people like Loki, who suffer for it?" Natasha asks. The four of them have turned away from the minutiae of the strategy meeting, talking quietly together at the far end of the room from where Fury and Hill are relaying orders and directions to their subordinates.

"Rare, unusual… suppressed," Thor admits. "And I thought nothing wrong of it until I knew weakness for myself. Until I first knew how it felt to truly fail. You know, if not for Loki I would not have known," he said ruefully. "Loki lied when he told me that Father had died for my actions, but nevertheless, it was a lie that showed me the truth for the first time. The truth that I was arrogant and dangerous. That everyone _like_ me was dangerous, and that our attempts to care without understanding became crushing…" he clenches and unclenches his fists. "Since the day two years ago when I became mortal, if only for a time, I have seen new ways of living and thinking, ways that I once would have rejected out of hand but now feel compelled to understand. Suddenly I know ways of life that are different to ours on Asgard, ways that are better for some. You cannot know how strange it is, your world where change is not only common but _celebrated_. It is something so large that even now, I still struggle with it…"

"What exactly are you struggling with, Thor?" Steve asks. Thor is beginning to mumble in circles and Steve wants to the heart of the matter.

"The idea that Loki has always been different… and that once, that may not have been a bad thing," Thor said, haltingly, as if expecting someone to interrupt him at any time. "I know he was good once, Captain. I _know_ he was. And once I thought his own wild perversions drove him mad… and now I see people who would be seen as just as different in Asgard, have fought with them, and love them dear as brothers, and see them become good simply because they are not treated as evil." Thor does nothing in half-measures; everything he does, everything he feels, is to the greatest extreme. Right now, his face is twisted into the deepest, most terrible sadness. "My friends are as I once was; they cannot see his differences as a good thing. As if he could do good, even if he is different. They have never been taught or allowed to think that way of anyone. And I wonder if that thinking is what truly twisted Loki."

"You didn't turn your brother into what he is, Thor," Steve insists. "He's not just a lost child like Vale. He made a lot of bad choices of his own."

Thor smiles. "Jane said something much similar," he says. "I know he made bad choices. But so did we, Captain. And the fact that we do not wish to create monsters does not mean that we do not do so regardless. That is what I fear."

{}

Loki looks around the cell that they have placed him in. It is not dark, like his room at Stark Tower, but bright, with blank, white-panelled walls, floor and ceiling. There is nothing in this blank space save a flat cot bed and dried flakes of Loki's blood falling from his clothing. It is silent. He doesn't like it.

"Boring," he says aloud for the benefit of the tiny eyes and ears that no doubt swarm the room, watching him. "Dull. Dreary. Tedious. Must I amuse myself?"

Frivolous as they were, the tales and shows left to him by the chattering woman were a diversion, at least, occupation for his restless mind. Now he has nothing left to him but his silver tongue, the pleasure of his own voice, and he fully intends to revel in it. He is too far from any well of magic to summon up any power, let alone enough to do anything, but he can still speak words. They will still have a power all of their own.

Reciting the summoning chant of a star eagle will not cause tremendous, winged death to descend upon this floating fortress, but it will cause the mortals to panic as they try to deduce what he is attempting to do, if it _is_ doing anything at all. He remembers his Midgardian literature and wonders what would happen if he shouted "Avada Kedavra!" at the top of his lungs, what panic would ensure.

The thought makes him laugh and he lets the laughter out, rolling around his silent cell. Let the mortals wonder what amuses him so. Let them wonder what chaos roils in the twisted mind of Loki.

He has only a brief time left in which to amuse himself. He might as well eke out all amusement he can. So he fills the silence with a song that drifts through his mind, something from the innumerable pathetic Midgardian excuses for performances that he put himself through as an alternative to ennui.

"You're in my world now, not your world, and I got friends on the other side…"

{}

"What is that?" Peter says, nodding at the screen. He's meant to be helping Tony go over the last few month's worth of northern hemisphere star charts— and he is, it's been a welcome distraction from the odd looks he's been drawing from passing SHIELD agents as they spot Spiderman in a labcoat— but he's kept a video feed to Loki's cell up in the corner of his screen. He has to admit that he's curious about the guy. It keeps sticking in his mind that the first time he ever saw Thor's crazy brother, the supervillain that first brought the Avengers together, he saved Peter's life and that of his aunt May.

"The song?" Tony says, not looking up from his own work, which involved no stars but does seem to involve dismembering a spare chest reactor with a screwdriver. "Villain song. _Princess and the Frog_. That slick bastard Dr Facilier. I always liked the Prince better, he got all the chicks even when he was a frog…"

"That Disney movie?" Peter stares at Tony in surprise. "You watch Disney movies?"

"Done a good few movie nights with Bruce, after ten years on the run he's almost as bad on his pop culture as Steve Wonder Boy," Tony says nonchalantly. "If Shanta's joining in, it's gotta be kid-friendly stuff. Though I dunno about some Disney movies. Have you _seen _some of those movies? _Hunchback of Notre Dame_ is just sick, seriously."

"Okay… _Loki_ watches Disney movies?" Peter asks. Tony shrugs.

"Darcy's a big believer in the healing power of Disney," Tony says. "Guess Loki took to it. So not surprised he's singing villain songs. He'd probably be a lot more likeable if he had a good villain song, though. Should we write him one? _He's just a sweet trans-species/ from transsexual/ Asgard-ania_…"

"Um, you might want to put that on hold," Peter says, quickly minimizing the video feed and pointing through one of the panel windows on the wall of the lab. Bruce is headed their way with a bag of sandwiches in one hand and Vale in the other. The boy is carrying one of the sandwiches, but waits until he's seated on a desk and Bruce has put a napkin on his lap before he eats. He eats in little bites, even though he's clearly starving.

"Kid, if you want to stuff yourself, just do it," Tony says, watching the boy eyeing the bag of sandwiches covetously. "This ain't a court dinner. You look famished."

"I am starving," Vale admits, looking nervously around at them. He then takes a big bite out of the sandwich and chews it quickly, trying to contain a cheeky grin.

"No need to fall on court protocol here, Vale," Bruce says, handing him another sandwich out of the bag.

"I don't know what to do otherwise," Vale says nervously. "It's still somewhat odd, making decisions without Narfe…" he looks down shyly as he says it.

"Thor said you two used to be trouble," Peter teases. Vale giggles.

"Uh-huh," he says. "We frequently would not attend class and practice magic instead, or play tricks with magic… we weren't supposed to, we were supposed to focus on learning our sword form, but magic is more fun. I would be frightened to play such tricks now, however. Before, Narfe and I were in everything together, and that made many things less frightening…" he lapses into a forlorn silence and starts chewing on his sandwich again.

"Sword form?" Peter asks. "So you've studied how to fight?"

"Everyone does," Vale says. "Everyone must. I am going to be in great trouble, no doubt… I have not practiced all month." He frowns. "Uncle never said that I had to. Do you think I will be in less trouble if I tell them that Uncle Thor gave me leave?"

"You don't like it, do you?" Bruce asks. Vale shakes his head sadly.

"I would rather study magic," he says softly. "I think it is fascinating, and that interesting things could be done with it… but I know that makes me weak."

"No it doesn't!" Peter bursts out. Everyone stares at him, and he's very glad of the mask hiding his expression. "Vale… strength doesn't just mean being able to beat people up. My uncle told me that with great power comes great responsibility, and I think that means the responsibility to use it _right,_ no matter what kind of power it is. I've got power that makes it _easy_ to beat people up, so y'know, I've got the responsibility to beat up the people who need beating up to protect the people who can't beat people up."

"Eloquent," Tony says, clapping. "No, really, you're giving old Bill Shakespeare a run for his money."

"What I think he's trying to say is that there's nothing wrong with not being able to beat people up, Vale," Bruce says with a smile. "Everyone's got different strengths."

"Like these guys' brains," Peter says, pointing at Tony and Bruce. Tony ducks in case a jet of web is headed his way to make him shut up (Bruce has been subtly goading Peter into doing it ever since he saw Peter do the same thing to a criminal once). "They can beat people up, yeah, but it's not their main thing or something that they really want to do. Their main thing is building a reactor that can power our world without doing any damage to it. These guys' brains are big enough to unpick the universe, so they've got the responsibility to do just that."

"I don't know whether to be flattered," Tony says to Bruce, "or mildly disturbed by being put in the same context as "responsibility"…"

"Well, blowing up your own weapons was taking responsibility for them, right?" Bruce consoles him. "You _can_ combine responsibility and explosions."

Vale giggles. "Father used to say that studying magic meant understanding the universe itself," he says. "If I was as good at it at Father, I could do all sorts of things…" he frowns. "But I'd get in trouble. For using magic, I mean."

"Only from the people who only know how to beat people up," Tony says, putting down his reactor and screwdriver. "For the rest of us, curiosity ought to be indulged. C'mon."

"Where are we going?" Bruce asks cautiously. Tony looks at Vale.

"Feel like visiting your dad again, kid?" he asks.

"I'm pretty sure he's not supposed to have visitors on here," Peter points out.

"Not scared of getting in trouble, are you?" Tony asks with a grin, picking up Vale's bag of sandwiches and pulling the kid off the desk. "C'mon. Us nerds are in this together."

{}

{}

_So suddenly this weird little oneshot is growing in my head into a huge fic and I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOING :P Chapters will probably be slow going for a little while until I've figured out where exactly this is going._


End file.
